CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY PS 3503.A779F9"'"""' '"'"'' 111^1^,1,°' t*"* desert 3 1924 022 248 623 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022248623 FRUIT OF THE DESERT " 'Let's get down to earth, you and I. For instance, what is your right name?,' " FRUIT OF THE DESERT BY RICHARD BARRY FRONTISPIECE BY RALPH PALLEN COLEMAN DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY GARDEN CITY NEW TOKK LONDON 1920 COPTBIQHT, 1919, 1980, BY DOUBLEDAT, PAGE tc COMPANT AliL RIGHTS BE8EEVED, INCLtXDING THAT OF TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANQUAGEa, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN CONTENTS HAPTER PAGE I. Kill or Cure 3 II. Enter the Desperado 10 III. The Good Samaritan 17 IV. Across the Grand Canon 24 V. Tuwah's People 31 VI. The Fair Chief 39 VII. The Sunnite Mine 51 VIII. The 011a Dance 58 IX. Their Night Together 66 X. The Water Test 73 XI. The Prison Cave 82 XII. The Desperado's Story 89 XIII. Bopu 98 XIV. The High Crime 105 XV. The Death Sentence 113 XVI. The Rescue . .' 122 XVII. Izara Intervenes .... 130 XVin. A Sunnite Execution 139 XIX. The Keeper of the Gem 147 XX. Renimciation 153 XXI. The Venerable Oyster 161 XXII. The Bear Skin 168 XXIII. Flood and Drought . .... . . . 174 XXIV. The Sorceress 183 V vi CONTENTS CHAPTER PAOB XXV. Banishment 192 XXVI. The Rock Ledge 198 XXVn. The Fight 203 XXVm. At the Telegraph Pole 210 XXIX. The Captured Sandpiper 217 XXX. Establishing a Protectorate 222 XXXI. Hemp Vs. Silk 228 XXXn. The PuU of the Primitive 234 XXXm. The New Life 241 FRUIT OF THE DESERT FRUIT OF THE DESERT CHAPTER 1 Knji OR CuEE IN AN arbour behind a bungalow on Gold Hill, a pale young man lay in an invalid chair observing through a magnifying glass the activity of an army of ants estab- lishing a new home at the base of a cosmos plant. Suddenly the right wing of the army stopped. One of the ants, appar- ently either ill or crippled, had fallen. Without the slightest hesitation the other ants attacked, kiUed, and buried the unfit one. Thus, it appeared, these admirable insects dis- posed of their unfortunates. The young man — ^Ranor Gaul — dropped his magnifying glass with a faint revulsion of feeling and reclined in his chair, which, presently, he propelled with his hands out of the arbour, aroimd the bungalow, and on to the front lawn. There, in the full afternoon sun, he gradually regained his composure. Yet he could not help asking himself if the ants did not possess, in one respect at least, a wisdom superior to that of human beings. Was it not better for the whole swarm quickly to rid itself of any member lack- ing the vigour for the essential struggle of life? Was it not also more merciful to the stricken one quickly to end what might be prolonged weariness and pain.'' While the gim revivified him these thoughts set up within his mind a sombre glow. Ranor looked out over the lovely city which stretched away 4 FRUIT OF THE DESERT at his feet below the little plateau of Gold Hill. It was Mon- rovia, "The Gem of the Foothills," fortunate possessor, ac- cording to the eminent speciaUst in New York who had sent him there, of the most equable and salubrious climate in North America. Ranor, who had spent periods of time in the suburbs of Sao Paulo, in Brazil; who had wintered in a villa near Nice; who knew the Httoral of the Sea of Marmora, and the choice northern inlets on the Island of Java, these being the various scenes in his pilgrimages in search of health during the past three years, had found it to be true that, cli- matically, Monrovia is perfect, with a year-aroimd sameness of balmy air. From this plateau of Gold Hill he could look in one direction into the snow-capped fringes of old Baldy, while in the other he could see the blue waves of the Pacific and the bathers splashing there. Ranor had barely recovered from the perturbation at wit- nessing the sudden death of the ant when he was startled into a graver apprehension by the voices of two nurses conversing on the porch of the bungalow. They had not heard his chair as it rolled up noiselessly just below them. "A victim of the colleges," said one. "He was the head of his class in mechanical engineering at the Boston Tech but he also wanted to win the half-mile run. The authorities should have prevented him. For three years he has been trying to regain his strength though he is going steadily down hill." "Doctor Lyman says it is a hopeless case," responded the other nurse. "Why do they choose Monrovia as a last resort? If they would only send them here first we might do something for them." An hour later Ranor still was looking silently across the Monrovia fields, where the sun was now fast setting on the orange orchards and tracing a fiUgree of purple light over the apricot bloom. For the first time he actually had heard the words of his doom which, in his soul, he had long KILL OR CURE 5 felt the physician had uttered. Within him there had oc- curred a desperate conflict from which he was emerging and he hardly knew if he were dead or alive. The radiant power and beauty of the sun alone seemed to assure him that it was life he faced. As he looked out over that collection of homes and orchards and charming cultivated gardens, it suddenly seemed as though a voice within him cried aloud that he could not and would not die. Life was too fair and too precious to fade away as he was fading. A terrible resent- ment at his own futility surged up within him and he asked himself with cruel insistence of what value was all the money which his father had so toilfuUy amassed. He, Ranor Gaul, could command anything in the world save only that most precious thing of all — ^life itself. Yet, was it true that man was no better, no wiser, no stronger than the ant? Indeed, perhaps, was man below the ant in wisdom and in courage? The nature of Ranor Gaul was not one to permit such thoughts passively to express themselves and to die without answer. Slowly in his consciousness evolved determination, and then a plan. If the society of human beings of which he had been bom a member persisted, first, in fanning his as- piring spirit into an activity which his fragile physique could not endure, and then in nursing and coddling him with such luxury and care that he was about to be smothered, had not life uttered to him, individually, a challenge? That was it — a challenge! AU those aroimd him had failed. Those who loved him, as well as those whom his father's money had piu-chased to attempt the cure of his ail- ment, had failed. Now the spirit withm him, the last flicker- ing spark, desperately, with its back to the wall, as it were, fighting to the end, with only an inch of existence left, must somehow rise superior over all these deterrents and accept the final challenge. Others had heretofore borne the responsibility. The known resources of the world had been exhausted, the most 6 FRUIT OF THE DESERT eminent physicians, the most perfectly equipped sanatoria, the choice health resorts, had failed to accomplish their boasted ends. The revolting eagle that was Ranor Gaul spurned their failure. Had not the famous captains of the world in all ages and in all activities been obliged, at the su- preme moments of their lives, to rely solely and only on themselves? And what greater stakes had any man ever fought for than that which now seemed so hopeless for him — life? When the nurse the following morning carried a breakfast of orange juice and the white of an egg to Ranor's room, she was startled to find it empty. A quick search revealed that the patient was gone. An alarm was sounded and inquiries were rapidly made throughout the neighbouring bungalows. A huge sanatorium a block away with its hundreds of pa- tients was rapidly canvassed; but to no avail. Two male nurses were sent down into the town to inquire from house to house and then into the stores on Myrtle Avenue; still without result. Finally they inserted an advertisement in the afternoon edition of the daily paper. Thus all the homes in Monrovia that evening knew that one of the richest and frailest patients in the exclusive bungalows on Gold Hill was missing. By nightfall the whole town was aroused and the chief of poUce had organized searching parties to proceed up Saw Pit Canon and into the trails around the base of Mount Wilson. AH felt that the delicate young man had wandered off and had fallen in some obscure spot where the common imagination pictured him lying exhausted and perhaps dying. However, when Mr. Clifford Syce, attorney, entered his office in Los Angeles at ten o'clock that morning, he discov- ered in his private sanctum the son of his most important client, old Aaron Gaxil of Philadelphia. Startled at the un- usual brilliance in Ranor's eyes and at the hectic ffush in his cheeks, Mr. Syce was all sympathy and attention. Despite KILL OR CURE 7 the fact that at first he appeared skeptical and antagonistic, he listened to the plan which Ranor proposed and, like a wise attorney, offered no immediate opposition, but rather coun- selled delay. "Have limcheon with me at the California Club and we'll talk it over," he said. "This afternoon I'll drive you back to Monrovia in my limousine and then I'll place the matter before your father, fully, as you've outlined." "You are pettifogging with time," countered Ranor, warmly. "You with your robust health, eating and drinking and smoking anything you like. Do you not realize that I have not a day to spare, not an hour, not a minute? The sands in my glass are low. If you do not act instantly, they will nm out while you sit there gaping at me like a good- natured cow." f^ Whatever further arguments Ranor used must have been extraordinarily convincing, because the final answer of Mr. Syce was to ring for his head clerk and to hand him a check with orders to proceed immediately to the bank and to return. Shortly there was placed in Ranor's hands a good-sized roll of yellow-backed bills. He rose to leave the office and swayed as he reached the door. Mr. Syce seized his hat and stick and, placing an arm through Ranor's, accompanied him out, though it was the middle of the forenoon and there was a case waiting in court for him to tiy. There ensued a strange shopping expedition in which the robust attorney acted as guide, agent, and friend to the hectic-faced youth. They visited the Mexican quarter and in an old stable located the first thing that Ranor de- sired, a light, covered wagon. Around the comer, in the old horse market, near the adobe church, they found a long-eared mule. The Chinaman, a truck farmer, who owned the animal, parted with him for an oversupply of the yellow backs. In his inscrutable yellow face was indicated genuine surprise at this odd investment by the two fastidiously dressed uptown white men. The mule was harnessed to the 8 FRUIT OF THE DESERT cart and the Chinaman was employed to drive it down to a wholesale grocery house. There it was half filled with tins and sacks and other paraphernalia that included an alcohol stove, an electric pocket light, and methylated spirits. Thence they proceeded to an outfitter's. After half an hour there Ranor emerged minus his well-cut New York clothes, wearing a red flannel shirt, khaki trousers, puttees, light san- dals, and a pith helmet. Among the provisions were plenty of condensed milk and desiccated eggs. In the front of the wagon were stored two huge kegs of water. Before noon all was ready. Mr. Syce insisted that the Chinaman be employed to drive Ranor through the Cohu- efiga Pass which lay on the outskirts of Hollywood, a dozen miles or so away. He, himself, accompanied the strange out- fit as far as Echo Park. "I'm doing a thing for which your father is likely never to forgive me," said the attorney when the time came for them to- part. "Personally, I have never had any use for these mollycoddling health resorts and I believe you are pur- suing the only path that may lead to recovery, but you have placed a grave responsibility on me. If anything happens to you, I will have a terrible accounting with your father. You have made me see there is no time to waste, that I cannot write or even telegraph, and I feel as if you had hyp- notized me into taking this rash step. But something in you convinces me, even against my better judgment, that you will find life, not death where you are going. Good-bye and good luck." At the last moment Mr. Syce pressed a revolver and a box of cartridges into Ranor's hands but the young man firmly refused them. "No, thank you," said he. "No one will rob me, as I have nothing that I can lose except my life and that hangs by so thin a thread that it could not tempt any thief." "In thirty days," continued Mr. Syce, "if I have not heard from you, I will come with my motor car to see how KILL OR CURE 9 ^ou are getting on and to bring a fresh supply of provisions, ta-ta!" The attorney turned toward the city, while the Chinaman snapped the reins across the back of the mule and the little wagon clattered on toward Hollywood and the Cohuefiga Pass. That night Ranor camped at the farther end of the San Fernando Valley and bade good-bye to the Chinaman, who, as he left, presented Ranor with a little package of punk and a tiny brass figure. "Good luck Joss," he explained. "Lightee stickee and bum away bad sick spirit." The second morning the mule dragged the covered wagon on to the edge of the Mojave Desert. The last house had been left several miles behind. A lassitude had come over Ranor and he felt as though he were dying. Wearily he climbed down from his seat and dropped on to the hot sands, where he spread himself at full length, and pulled the pith helmet over his face to shield himself from the sun. For hours he lay there while the mule dutifully waited. As his body sank into the sand and the sun rose in the heavens, his lassitude very slowly began to disappear, and in its place came a more definite sensation; it seemed almost as if his flesh were burning. After a while the heat became intolerable and he crawled under the shade of the wagon. The mule, which he had now tethered to a spoke of the front wheel, seeing him there, lay down and rolled under the wagon, also seeking shade. Ranor snuggled up to the mule and using his back as a pillow, went to sleep. He had accepted the challenge and had won the first round of the contest that was to be to a finish. CHAPTER II EnTEE the DeSPEKAD6'1*- Ji^^ V.W THAT night Ranor prepared his supper over the alco- hol stove and then fed the mule. He watched the vivid colours of the swift semi-tropic twilight, and, •with the coming of night, felt a sudden chill. He crawled into the wagon but the boards were too hard for comfort; so he took his blankets underneath and settled cozily into the soft sand where it had been unshaded all day from the sun and was still almost hot. He scooped out a narrow trench and nestled mto that, pulling the blankets over him. For a time he dozed, but before midnight he found himself wide awake, and from then until dawn he lay staring up into the starry vault. The cobalt blue of the sky, studded as if with innumerable diamonds, seemed a more intimate and a far more splendid canopy than he had ever known. No other open air was like this. The sleeping porch of a specially con- structed bungalow, though admitting the winds to his nos- trils, always blocked the avenues of his mind which loved to soar. Now his imagination wandered on and on, not metaphy- sically, for he was not an introspective youth, but with a direct and healthy query, concerning fimdamentals. If there was a power beyond man, could that power have the opportunity specifically to care for any single human being when it was so swallowed up among the many millions? Or was it not more logical to suppose that such a higher power, if it existed, would have a better opportunity to administer to a single unit if that unit were segregatewi as 10 ENTER TUE DESPERADO 11 now he was, far from all the others, alone, on the drifting sands? As the sun rose, he stirred from his little trench bed, made himself a cup of coflfee, partook of a light breakfast, hitched up the mule, and drove on into the desert directly east for perhaps a mi'e Here he halted again, tethered the mule, and SGUoht U. ade of the wagon where he dozed inertly most of the Ccy. But he had left his khaki coat in the wagon and only the red flannel shirt lay between his breast and the rays of the sun. He stretched himself away from the wagon as long as he could endure the heat. To begin with, these periods lasted only five or ten minutes, but in the late afternoon he succeeded in lying out in the sun for fuUy an hour. The following morning he drove another mile into the desert, and that day when he dragged himself into the sun he had left one of his shoes in the wagon. The third morning he left the other shoe behind. The fourth morning he dis- carded one of the puttees and the fifth morning the other. The sixth and seventh days saw the disappearance of his stockings, one after the other. By this time he was far into the desert. There was no sign of human habitation. Except for an occasional cactus plant, there was no vegetation. The mule was the only visible living thing. At the beginning of the second week his clothing con- sisted of the red flannel undershirt and a pair of khaki breeches. At the end of that week he discarded the breeches. One morning — ^it was the fifteenth, as he remembered it — ^he crept from the side of the wagon into the full glare of the sun with but a single article of apparel — ^the pith helmet — and he lay there half the day with the helmet covering his face. Ranor had taken the precaution each day to rub himself with ointment so that his skin was not burned, but it had gradually assumed a dull red colour which was deepening 12 FRUIT OF THE DESERT into a bronze on the legs and arms where he longest had been exposed. The bones showed taut under his skin, for his ailment had wasted him away imtil he had very Httle flesh left. Now his eyes were bimiing with an almost feverish brilliancy. If one could have seen those eyes he would have marvelled at the sense of excitement they mirrored. "Mad," Ranor might have been called, for apparently he had nothing to occupy his mind and yet all the time there was glowing in his deep-set eyes that intent determination of the runner on the last lap of a long race who sees the goal in sight and who musters up his last strength for the final effort to reach it. Without any of the paraphernalia of a sick room, Ranor '. was wholly absorbed in watching — ^as though he were an out- sider — the terrific battle that was being waged in his own body by the forces of destruction which had all but won, and the new life-giving forces that were streaming down so potently from the sun in the heavens. Each day he felt his last reserves called out as if for a final stand. Each day he felt the resentment, yes, the revolt of his fragile body at this violent task that had been laid upon it without warning and with a roughness, even a brutality, which all of its twenty-three years had never known before. The experiment was so radical, the shock so intense, that it sufiSced to furnish Ranor that full sense of dramatic suspense which could have been seen day after day in his eyes, and which was not madness, but the sublimated absorption of a spectator who is observing a life-and-death struggle in which he himself has furnished the antagonists, and of which he yet remains hardly more than a passive spectator. When, in his failing moments, the thought came to him that he had made a fatal error, and that he was about to die, and that if so, it better might have been in a comfortable bed among the pleasant attendants in the health resort, the spirit of adventure within him scorned this weakness. "A man may die but once," he replied to himself, "and if ENTER THE DESPERADO 13 he must die, let him die a pioneer, pushing boldly beyond the confines of the known." Thoughts such as these filled the wakefulness of his nights when the cool air fanned his burning body, while slumber filled his days as the sun poured down its torrid strength. Before the third week was done he found that he could lie almost all the day, nude, on the open sands, while the hardy mule was driven to seek the comforting shade of the wagon. If Ranor had consulted the specialists in his malady before he made this desperate experiment, they undoubtedly would have advised against it. Doubtless it would have been assumed that a patient in his weakened condition would be incompetent correctly to gauge the last few ounces of his strength and that the danger from over exertion and over exposure far outweighed the chance of possible benefit. It was a nether instinct, not a conscious one, which guided Ranor and ministered to him dinring this obscure conflict on the lonely desert sands. At all times during the first three weeks he felt that he was driving at top speed; that every hour he was throwing into the balance his last particle of strength; that each day must be his last. Therefore, while he was a lone man, exhausted, without the solace of books or of anything else to occupy his mind, he was in reality tensely occupied. The day that a man dies is always interesting, and each day seemed to him to be his last, imtil, to his astonishment, there crept over the rim of the far horizon the lilac dawn of another. One day, toward the end of the fourth week, Ranor walked a quarter of a mile away from his wagon. This was the first time in six months when so much exertion had not utterly exhausted him, but now he smiled faintly and he was per- vaded by a strange content, one very different from the lassi- tude that had previously left him numb. Was it victory? He stilled the sense of exultation which buoyed him, fearing that he might be labouring under some hallucination, and 14 FRUIT OF THE DESERT turned to regain his shelter before he had drawn too deeply on the slim reservoir of strength which he had accumiJated in four weeks with sun and sand. His foot felt something hard. Stooping to examine this unwonted deviation from the springy softness of the illimit- able sandy carpet, he picked up a bleached bone. Then he observed that near by were many gentle imdulations on the surface of the sand. He kicked into some of these and easily uncovered other bones. Shortly, he discovered what was undoubtedly the vertebra of a horse; then a skull, then another. And they were human skulls. Startled by this gruesome reminder of the tenuous thread that bound him to life, he hastened back toward his wagon. As Ranor approached his placid mule, he noted a speck on the far horizon. Once again under the shade, he propi)ed himself against a wheel and lazily watched this speck. In an hour it had become a living object bearing down upon him. He consulted the calendar he carried in his wagon and found that it had been twenty-seven days since he b^e farewell to Mr. Syce on the edge of Echo Park. If it was three days before the attorney was due, still Ranor awaited the advent of the newcomer with a pleasant sense of relief, for, although he had plenty of provisions, he was sure that Mr. Syce would not come without fresh milk, eggs, and fruit, and these would be a welcome variant from the tinned stuff which was beginning to pall upon him. He noted with satisfaction his own healthy thought of food. A month before he had been too ill to care very much what sort of food he had. So, in honour of the impending occasion, he put on his shirt and breeches. Half an hour later a horseman dismounted by the side of the wagon and thrusta long, blue-barrelled revolver under Ranor's pacific nose. This was certainly not the well-mannered and well-groomed Mr. Syce, and after he had taken a second glance at the occupant of the wagon, he pocketed his weapon with a grunt, as he remarked, "You'll have to excuse my French, ENTER THE DESPERADO 15 partner, but I ain't takin' any chances. You look a bit tuck- ered. Pickin' cactus lilies ? ' ' "No." "Which way you going?" "I'm staying." "Prospectin'?" "In a way — ^yes." "What for?" "Health." "Huh!" Through these laconicisms Ranor observed the stranger carefully. He saw a gaunt, hard-jawed, long-nosed individ- ual, with a week's stubble on his scarred face. The strength of his countenance was marred by the narrowness of his steely blue eyes which showed like pinheads from under high- arched brows, while the lids were red, as from long travel and sleeplessness. The stranger gazed hungrily toward the wagon, and a drop of saUva trickled over his chin as though long-quenched appetites were welling forth. "Looks hke chuck," said the sinister one as he leaned gauntly under the cover, pulling forth the alcohol stove with its mess tin, and then one after another the eatables. Swiftly, without a word, and like a famished animal, he devoiu-ed the food. In half an hour he had eaten as much as Ranor had consumed in a week. Without further loss of time the stranger proceeded me- chanically and methodically to bridle the mule and to load it with an improvised pair of saddle bags made from one of Ranor's blankets which he had cut into strips, unheeding the protestations of the astonished yotmg man. Then he filled the capacious pockets with the remaining stores. He cleaned out the wagon completely, leaving nothing but an opened and partially empty tin of condensed milk. He took everything of any value except Ranor's blankets, and as he tucked the alcohol stove in his bag, remarked, with a grin, "These'U help a live stick up more'n any dead lunger!" 16 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Then the stranger produced his revolver, walked over to his horse which lay exhausted, with its thin ribs showing through its worn coat and bearing every appearance of des- perately hard riding for days unending, and shot it through the head. The animal barely moved a leg, no doubt gratefully accepting this as a merciful finish to its lately cruel life. The stranger mounted the mule and as he started off east into the desert, called to Ranor : "If the sheriff from Petaluma comes this way, tell him I'U meet him in the Siskiyou country a year from next Tuesday for a little shooting-bee. You're only seven miles from the edge of the desert. You can walk it before sun-down. Bye-bye!" CHAPTER III The Good Samahitan RANOR stood in the shade of his wagon watching the desperado riding off on his mule until the bulging saddle bags were indistinct. Finally, the mule and man seemed no bigger than a rabbit on the far horizon. Ranor cast one despairing glance at the famished carcass of the horse and then placed himself so that the wagon would shield him from this gruesome sight. It was high noon. He discarded the shirt and breeches he had donned out of ceremonious regard for his late visitor, and stretched himself again at full length in the hot sand. There he lay inert until sundown. If it had not been for this robber he could have greeted Mr. Syce on the thirtieth day with exultant news, for he had felt that his fight was won and that he was on the up-road to health. Now, in a trice, his vantage, so slim, yet so vital, was gone. All through the afternoon he felt the exhaustion of a wearied spirit plucked of its last resource. Suddenly he had been set back two or three weeks into those days in which he had thought each was his last. The seven miles which the des- perado had spoken of so Ughtly he well knew would prove for him seven leagues. He had httle hope that in his weak- ened condition he could survive them. However, the coolness of the evening brought a gentle caress which gradually revived his hopes. Searching in the wagon, he found that the desperado had mercifully left a quart of water and with this he moistened his parched throat. He poured the remainder into a canteen which he 17 18 FRUIT OF THE DESERT slung about his waist. This, with the half tin of condensed milk, was all the sustenance that remained from the store he had brought into the desert. About ten o'clock the moon showed a saffron rim out of the northeast. In the resulting ghostly light he started on his journey. Though it was only seven miles, such a journey a month before surely would have kiUed him. Now his spirit rose to the test with satisfaction, and he felt that somehow he would regain all that he wiUingly had left behind. As he travelled toward the west, in a short while he passed the little graveyard he had discovered that day. A few steps farther on, a hoarse, far, mournful cry startled him with sudden fear. It seemed that the blood would freeze in his veins. Again the cry echoed into the night and was answered through the far distance by another. Coyotes? Were these snarling beasts who never attacked the strong and well sending for- ward the signal to the pack that another victim was ready for their cowardly onslaught? What defense had he, powerless against a cat? Impelled by this new, startling fear, he quickened his pace into a half nm, and in a few minutes had fallen, exhausted. The strain was too great. His heart was poimding with desperate violence and he breathed with great difficulty, while his head burned and his ears rang. Was this death? He lay inert for some time imtil his body gradually became more composed and his breath more regular. Again the snarling cries echoed back and forth across the desert from horizon to horizon, only this time they seemed nearer. With an intense effort of his will he mastered his fear and his excitement, rose steadily to his feet, and walked on slowly toward the west, carefully measuring his steps. He had heard it said that coyotes would never attack a man or an animal that moved or even stood erect. Thus, proceeding slowly, he continued for some time until the moonlight began to fade before the stronger suffusion of the coming sun. He knew that it would be fatal for him to THE GOOD SAMARITAN 19 continue through the heat of the day and he peered anxiously toward the west for signs of vegetation, for he felt that he must have been going at least two or three miles an hour and that if so, he was already due among the haunts of men. As the sun rose, a faint weakness came over h\m for still on all sides stretched the desert, apparently for illimitable miles in every direction. Could he have failed to take note of the west as the sun went down the night before? Or had he become a victim of that failing sense of direction which afflicts travellers in the desert, causing them to proceed al- ways in a circle? He looked eagerly for the wagon. It was nowhere to be seen. With even greater anxiety he searched the horizon for signs of coyotes, but there were none. There was absolutely nothing — ^nothing in sight but desert sand. He moistened his lips with'a few drops of his dwindling water, and sank into a pitiful little heap. And as he went to sleep, as had long been his wont, under the fierce glances of the sun, he felt that surely now his final day had come. Here he would die, and in due time the flesh would rot from his bones and the sand would be blown in a little hillock over them, and if some traveller on some distant date should by chance come upon them, he woxdd not know when they had whitened there, this day or this year or a decade or two decades before. Was it from sleep or from a dying stupor that Ranor awakened late that afternoon? Man dies when the mind wills death, and that morning as he sank into the sands he had for the first time given up hope of life. Therefore through the day, despite the fact that he was in better health than he had beenfor a long while.his strength failed more rapidly than ever before, and it may well have been that he was on the very verge of the great imknown. In fact, Ranor awoke with the thought that he had de- parted the shell of his late existence and was coming into a new experience. To heighten this illusion, he looked into a 20 FRUIT OF THE DESERT face which seemed almost more than human. It was cabn, benign, patriarchal, furrowed deep with lines of age; tanned, bronzed, and weather-beaten, imtil it looked like some grand old historic plaque, so imlike the faces he had always known, the sleek, white faces, composed with good living, or twisted with sly shrewdness, that in his state, one almost of levita- tion, he was suddenly seized with eager thought that perhaps this might be St. Peter himself — a St. Peter of the desert, bronzed by the sun, excoriated by the wind. This con- clusion was accentuated by the aureole of white hair which surrounded the calm featiu-es compassionately gazing upon him as the aged man passed an arm under Ranor's fraU body and held the young form tenderly against his firm old breast. Gently the mouth of an oUa was pressed to Ranor's lips and a few drops of a strange Uquid trickled down his throat. Instantly a merciful tenderness suffused his frame, and as the last rays of the setting sun laved him in a molten glow, he thoroughly wakened, breathed deeply, stretched his limbs, sat up, and looked around. Yes, the desert was still there, the same old dry, hot sand, and it was not St. Peter, but an ancient Indian who with a kind smile knelt beside him. He had not been translated to heaven but was stUl on the good old earth. In the morning had come the desperado. Now, here in the evening, was the Good Samaritan. The bad man had been white; the good man was a coppery red. "Who are you?" asked Ranor out of the fullness of his salvation. "Tuwah," said the Indian. "Where did you come from?" The Indian looked long at him vsdth intelligent but un- responsive eyes, as though to indicate that the white man's language was one with which he was unfamiliar. In his eagerness Ranor rose to his feet but stood shakily, his Umbs trembling like the legs of a new-born colt who, for the first time, feels the earth under his hoofs. Then, suddenly, THE GOOD SAMARITAN 21 he sank to the earth and closed his eyes. He had fainted with the shock of recovery. A httle later, when the sun was quite gone and the moon was riding high in the starry night, Ranor entirely recovered his senses and his speech. He found himself reclining on a newly made bed of blankets with the sand pillowed com- fortably under his head. Again the pleasant liquid from the olla trickled down his throat. An elixir seemed to pour into his veins. Brandy could no better have revived him, al- though he felt sure there was no alcohol in the drink, for it left no sharp sting in his mouth, which was pervaded with a pleasant coolness. Then the Indian ofiEered him a queer cake, baked, apparently, of dry and pounded maize. This he mimched contentedly. It tasted as sweet and nutritious as freshly cracked walnuts. Ranor lifted himself on his elbow, now quite recovered, and looked well around. A few paces oS stood a rangy old cayuse, but a glance at its tough sides and the virile arch of its shaggy head indicated that it woidd be competent to travel far on Uttle sustenance- Behind the cayuse was a crude carry-all formed of two rough-hewn boughs bound together by thongs of hemp. On this lay a few articles, indistinct in the moonlight. The aged Indian wore only a pair of sand-coloured breeches made of some homespun cloth which was unlike anything that Ranor ever before had seen. The muscles on the naked torso of the old man who might have teen sixty or seventy or even eighty, rippled in the moonlight, like the supple body of an active athlete. Were it not for the snow-white hair and the deeply wrinkled countenance, Ranor would have thought that he had been succoured by a warrior in his prime. A supernal calm came to the youth. Was it not more than some stray, wandering Indian who had accidently stumbled on him? The red Samaritan bore an atmosphere of radiant health that had a swiftly flowing underciu'rent of active optimism, needing no words for expression and in the 22 FRUIT OF THE DESERT presence of which it seemed there could be no fear, no appre- hension, no death. "Where are you going?" The Indian slowly shook his head as though to say he did not understand. "Where did you come from?" Again a silent, poised negative. "Well, old top," laughed Ranor with a jubilance which welled from his innermost spirit, "I don't care where you come from or where you're going to, you've thrown me a life line, and I can promise you right now that when you get me back, my father will see that you no longer peg around with that old cayuse. If you want a flivver, you shall have it. If you want a trip to New York in a private car and with a black man to serve you any amount of good whiskey any time of the day or night, speak up — ^it's yours." The benign eyes of the ancient one glowed responsively. If the intelligence behind them did not understand the words Ranor was speaking, yet the spirit certainly was received fittingly. As though to express his gratitude for the gifts so eagerly offered, the Indian now proceeded with firm, strong hands to massage the wasted body of the yoimg man, and, as he worked, from time to time he poured imder his fingers a few drops of the life-giving fluid from the olla. Thus Ranor drank through his pores the rare elixir and soon he felt so refreshed and strengthened that in that moonUt midnight on the far desert sand he came into a strength and confidence which he had not possessed since his early college days when he had been chosen one of the picked number from a large class to represent it on the track team. In the hour before dawn Ranor stood on his feet again, this time steadily. "I am ready, old scout," he called. "Come, let's beat it. Mr. Syce must see me now and I've got a life job for you. You are going to be my valet, secretary, guide, philosopher, general manager, full partner, and friend from now tmtil my hair is as white as yours and afterward, if it is all the same to THE GOOD SAMARITAN 23 you. I know you don't get a word of this but you've saved my life and the Gauls are going to know about it, and when Aaron Gaul does know about it, all the wrongs that have been done the Indians on this continent in the last three hundred years will be undone by one white man in Philadelphia." Slowly the Indian had fastened the carry-all to the old cajTise. Then, despite Ranor's protests, he lifted the young man and placed him gently on the bed of hemp thongs, spoke a word in his strange, guttural language to the rangy ani- mal and the little cavalcade began its journey with the Indian trudging on at the head. Presently as the sun rose, Ranor became pervaded with an uncanny feeling that they were not going west toward the San Fernando Valley but were proceeding east into the very heart of the desert. He called to the Indian, but the aged man evidently heard him not. CHAPTER IV Across the Grand Canon INDEED, there could be no doubt that they vr&re headed ahnost due east, for soon the early lilac of the dawn grew into rose and then the violent golden disk of the sun itself peeped above the far sands and Banor saw that they were proceeding as if to meet it. He knew that it was two or three hundred miles across the Mojave at this point, and now his new-foimd confidence was supplanted by a sud- den fear. Was it an amiable idiot who had discovered him? He recalled the bland features of the old Indian with his wide-set eyes and there came to his mind stories he had heard of wan- derers, sometimes red and sometimes white, who become afflicted with the so-called "Dead Valley fever" which is no fever at all, but an obsession wedding tiiem, completely and forever, to life on the desert, forcing them to shy away from all the haunts of men and to spend their remaining days in the absorbiag panorama of sand and sky in which they cease to be lonely. Thus they become physically strong and mentally self-reliant while they rentiain aloof from any further human association. These "sand idiots," as they are sometimes called, are, in reaUty, hermits of the desert in whom the vast and overpower- ing forces of nature have dried up all gregarious instincts. At the sanatorium once a doctor had told Ranor that if a man can survive the initial period of terrific loneliness which comes with habitation in the desert, he will eventually reach this mummy-like condition of indifference to all his 24 ACROSS THE GRAND CANON 25 past, in which he will find, perhaps, keener and more constant joy in the primitive sensations of nature worship and of sensuous pleasure in the sun and wind and earth, than is possible to any one living a modem, civilized life. With this reflection Ranor concluded that he had been picked up by such a hermit. He promptly sUd from the carry-all crying out: "Hold up, St. Peter; I've had enough of this desert jag." The Indian stopped the cayuse and turned to Ranor with mild surprise, and, thinking that he was hungry, produced another maize cake and imslimg a gourd of water. Ranor refreshed himself and then made fiu-ther efforts to commimi- cate with his new friend. These efforts, however, were unav^iUng. To all that he said the Indian either slowly shook his head, or looked upon him with a mild indulgence, smiling as a father might at the querulous chatter of an infant. Ranor had amused himself while at the sanatorium by taking up the study of the Indian dialects of the Southwest and he knew a few words of many languages. He tried Piute but this met the same response as his English. Then he gave a salutation in Apache with Uke effect. He experimented in Digger, in Shoshone, and in a mongrel dialect that was in use among the mission Indians near the Warner Hot Springs. He might as well have tried Russian or Chinese. He could say "good-morning" in Arapahoe and in Choctaw and in Sioux, but if the old wanderer understood, his eyes gave no glint of intelligent response. Perhaps he was a northwestern Indian, a thousand miles south of the habitat of his tribe. Ranor tried "good-morning" in Walla-walla and in Siwash. These were equally ineffective. In desperation Ranor fell back upon the umversal re-; source which never fails to make men understand one an- other whether they be Arab, Hindoo, Malay, Jap, Indian, European, or American — the sign language. By pointing first toward the direction opposite to the rising sun, which 26 FRUIT OF THE DESERT unmistakably must be the west, by pointing to himself and then to his legs with which he mimicked the action of walking, and by an intense longing in his face, Ranor thought that he had unmistakably revealed to the Indian his desire to travel toward those he had left the month before. The old wanderer nodded gravely as though he thoroughly comprehended, and motioned to Ranor to regain ]|iis resting place in the carry-all. This the young man did. The Indian spoke to the cayuse and again they journeyed on, into the east! Now, what should Ranor do? He was happy and comfort- able, though a little tired, lying there on the hemp thongs of the carry-all as it dragged slowly through the sand with hardly a jolt to mar the comfort of his crude bed, and, as the sun rose and the air became hot, his body seemed to expand with pleasure under the friendly warmth to which he was now accustomed. Did he dare leave the companionship of this apparently trustworthy ancient who, though wayward, was so evidently harmless? As a matter of fact, his physical comfort was so gratified, and his trust in the old Indian, despite his contrary march into the heart of the desert, was such, that he very shortly lost even his momentary desire to force an issue on the question of the direction of their journey. Ranor's short four weeks had taught him that the sun is the greatest friend of man, and his constant sojourn in the desert had robbed the sands of their terror. Could it be that he, too, was to forget the myriad associations of his past and, in the void created by their absence, fill in the solitary, sensory delights of sun ray, moon shine, and barren sand? Now the days succeeded one another in bhssful unconcern. Ranor had left his calendar in the wagon and presently, one fine day, though it was no finer than the others, he found himself trudging along with the Indian and wondering vaguely if it was one week, two weeks, or three weeks since his en- ACROSS THE GRAND CANON 27 counter with the desperado. Strangely, he was not worried nor even greatly interested to know how much time had elapsed. Of one thing only he was sure — ^he was strong enough to walk barefoot twelve or fifteen miles a day through the deep sand, his clothing consisting of a pair of cotton breeches and his pith helmet. From the old Indian he had received only kindly thought and attention. Each night as they camped, Tuwah (Ranor foimd he responded to this name) massaged his young white friend, using as an unguent carefully measiu-ed-out drops of the strange elixir which he safely kept guarded in the tiny oUa in his belt. The resultant sleep was extremely refresh- ing, free from dreams, devoid of lassitude, and Ranor always awoke at the earliest streak of the dawn, stretching his limbs with delicious vigour. He had found a new life. He had been born again. Lately, the hectic cough had disappeared, and day by day he had increased the length of his march, until now he no longer found it necessary to seek the assistance of the carry-all or to burden the old cayuse with the added weight of his revitalized body. For several days he was conscious of a slow-growing change in the character of the horizon on the east into which they were proceeding. Where nothing had been visible there now appeared the ragged skyline of far mountains. A few days later he could descry on their nearest slope forests and undergrowth. Then they entered a portion of the desert where grew, at frequent intervals, the fronded yucca. After two days of this they entered the chaparral and in this ap- peared occasional flowers, yellow and blue and violent crim- son. They were leaving the desert behind, though as yet there was no appearance of any water. Early one forenoon, with a dramatic suddenness that was almost frightening, the old cayuse stuck his front hoofs at the base of a tuft of chaparral and refused to budge another inch, while Tuwah threw himself flat on his stomach and 28 FRUIT OF THE DESERT seemed to be looking down, far down. Ranor, who had been lagging behind a few yards, hastened up and as he reached Tuwah, he also threw himself flat on the earth. This action was automatic for it seemed requisite to brace himself against an avalanche of sensation which assaulted his whirl- ing brain. Thus, without warning, he came upon and gazed into that great wonder, the Grand Canon of the Colorado. It lay below and beyond — ^a mighty livid gash; a fact so stupendous that his imagination failed to comprehend it and his breath almost stopped. Sheer down for hundreds and hundreds of feet in straight perpendicular dropped the mighty cHff on whose top he lay, poised like a pinioned eagle in mid air. Far, far below a tiny ribbon of purest silver threaded its way through the wondrous multicoloured rock. In serrated grandeur beyond rose buttes and plateaus and mesas of rock and still more rock cut into every fantastic shape, cones and pyramids and spheroids, some hanging in mid air as if about to topple over, others buttressed as if in granite and made to withstand time and eternity. The cliff that fell directly from beneath his chin was tinted the most delicate shade of sea-shell pink, while the bluff that rose beyond, though only a third as high, was mottled with stringy maroon and out of it spread stalactite particles shiny in malachite green. Beyond that uprose a cone, enor- mous as the hugest skyscraper he had ever seen and, in the dazzling simlight, molten with tawny amber. Beyond that, in serrated formation, like the dim battlements of moss- grown medieval castles, were spread multitudes of wondrous formations farther than the eye could see. After a few moments Ranor foimd himself grasping with desperate tenacity the tough shanks of the nearest chaparral. A tiny atom in that panoply of glory, he felt shrivelled and shrunk to nothingness, and yet fear overcame him as if he were facing annihilation. Tuwah, in a kindly glance, in- stinctively comprehended the tumult in the soul of his young friend. The Indian lifted Ranor up and drew him back a few ACROSS THE GRAND CANON 29 paces from the brink of the yawning chasm. The wide-set eyes, the patriarchal countenance reassured him. In a moment the little cavalcade had resumed its journey ,^ guided by Tuwah, in an oblique direction toward the north but always maintaining a respectable distance of a few rods from the edge of the precipice. Half a day farther on, Tuwah revealed a break in the edge of the desert and in a moment he had disappeared, followed obediently by the cayuse. As the carry-all went over the side, Ranor, too, though not without trepidation, followed. He found himself on a trail, not over wide, which lead all too steeply down the sheU-pink fissure of the canon. Two hoiu^ later they stood safely at the side of the silver ribbon which now had grown into a broad and beautiful river flowing majestically along between its august banks, its noble bosom deepened into a dark and spacious blue. With sheer delight Ranor dipped his hands in the fresh water and laved his face in the precious wet. Almost before he knew it, Tuwah had slipped into the river as naturally as an otter. After him followed the shaggy cayuse, pulling the old carry-all which easily floated on the stream. From the water Tuwah looked around and gave an encouraging nod to Ranor, who, ashamed of the fear that obsessed him, finally also plimged in. Fortimately, at school he had been one of the best swimmers in his class, although for three years he had not been able to trust himself beyond his depth, fearful that his strength would not be sufficient to maintain him. Now, what pleasure, what satisfaction he felt as he found himself swimming steadily and easily, and refreshed by the water as nothing, not even the elixir under the ma^c fingers, of the old Indian, had ever refreshed him! Tuwah struck out strongly for the opposite bank where the shore was low and before long drew himself out and reclined easily on a ledge of sand-stone that had the appear- ance and the texture of wine-coloured velvet. The cayuse 30 FRUIT OF THE DESERT followed and a few minutes later Ranor also dropped, with a weary but happy sigh, to a place at the side of the Indian. He did not know then that he was the first white man ever to swim across the Colorado at this point. If he had known this he might have understood the new respect with which Tuwah henceforth regarded him. CHAPTER V Tuwah's People THEY paused on the farther bank of the river for only a few minutes. In the desert Tuwah had appeared fairly certain of where he was going, but in this wilder- ness of coloured crags he now seemed to be quite at home. Alone, Ilanor would have been paralyzed with the awful vast- ness. There was no evidence that man had ever passed that way before. Yet Tuwah struck oflf into the bewildering maze with the certainty of a city dweller traversing his own neighbourhood. Soon the river was out of sight; they rounded the shoulder of an enormous butte and proceeded to zigzag a way among the farther elevations. To his surprise, Ranor foimd that the walk was not so difficult as he had anticipated. His bare feet had become inured to the desert, but what appeared in the distance as rock he found, on closer examination, to be a soft sandstone without sharp edges, but which the ero- sion of time had dulled and softened. It was harder than earth, yet softer than rock and more wondrously coloured than any silks he had ever seen; it spread a lustrous carpet through the antechamber of a new adventure. That night they camped by a pool of water several miles to the east of the river. As it was fresh and cool and appeared to have no outlet, Ranor concluded that it must be fed by a spring from the bottom. Here again they bathed. As he looked into the unbroken surface of the pool, Ranor saw him- self as in a mirror. The change from the wasted face and figure he had known back in the sanatorium was startling. 31 32 FRUIT OF THE DESERT His arms and legs were sleek and sinewy where before they had been flabby. The hollows of his cheeks were filling in and his eyes flashed with health. For two days they proceeded through the cafion, now going east, and again north, until finally, without any appar- ent definite climb, they stood on the farther rim of the canon many miles from the starting point and looked back into the wilderness of form and colour. They had not seen a living thing, not even a jack-rabbit, nor a mesquite flower. This was all to be changed, however, for they now entered a forest where no hour passed without their hearing the whir of partridges, the chattering of birds, or the patter of tiny furry animals running through the underbrush. Once Tu wah pointed into the crotch of a tree some distance from their path, and there Ranor saw, crouching, a yellow animal, with black and brown spots upon his brilliant hide. He concluded that it was a puma and he so plainly revealed his nervous apprehension that Tuwah, to reassure him, took a few steps in the direction of the beast which promptly leaped from the tree and ran away. That afternoon they saw a family of deer, a buck with finely arched horns, a doe, and a trembling fawn. These seemed more friendly than the puma for they stood their ground in gentle curiosity until the little cavalcade was a few yards from them before they scuttled into the underbrush and dis- appeared behind a thatch of elderberries where the wild phlox and the honeysuckle closed in behind them as if to cover their escape with a poetic veil. They came to a halt that night near a great grotto at the mouth of which Tuwah built a fire. As Ranor was searching inside the grotto in the dusk for some dried wood he was startled by a throaty rattle and a nameless fear smote him. Agilely Tuwah leaped to his side and pulled him back into the light as a rattlesnake struck, missing his foot by the fraction of an inch. Tuwah calmly watched the snake wriggle out of sight, while Ranor seized a rock with which to kill it TUWAH'S PEOPLE 33 but the Indian caught his uplifted arm and restrained him. Following this incident the thought came recurrently to Ranor that he had never seen the Indian make any attempt to capture or injure any of the Uving things which had crossed their path, and it struck him as curious that at the river there had been no attempt to fish and that in the outfit of the carry-all there were implements for neither himting nor fishing. He pondered over this pectiliarity and then gave up the solution of it, though he did not sleep that night as well as formerly, through thinking of the rattler and of his very narrow escape. Late the next afternoon they emerged from the forest on to a tableland at the far end of which, perhaps twenty miles away, Ranor could see mountains. This tableland was carpeted with wild grass in which were sprinkled ox- eyed daisies and golden-rod. All grew lush and knee- deep. Instead of striking straight across, Tuwah skirted the edge of this imtrodden field for a few miles. He seemed to be looking for some landmark. At length he reached a huge white ash tree, the bole of which had been gashed by a lightning streak so that half of it was withered. From this point a path led through the wild grass. They stopped there that night and the next morning en- tered the path. Before nightfall they had gained the far foothills. These were in decided contrast to the barrenness of the coast mountains and the desert ranges. Evidently there was regular rainfall here for the vegetation was rich and varied and the trees similar to those Ranor had known in the East. They were mostly of hard wood, oak and ash and elm, but he saw up the slope a plentiful sprinkling of pine and poplar. He felt more comfortable now and wondered if they had at last reached the foothills of the Rockies. For another week they travelled through this attractive country, across valleys, over hills, by the side of pleasant streams. Tuwah was resourceful in discovering fresh food. 34 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Blueberries, hickory nuts, and butternuts were plentiful, but one day the Indian spied some low trees a mile or more down a slope and guided them there with unusual eagerness. He had discovered a little clump of hazel trees and their nuts with thin shells and big meaty kernels proved a delightful variant from the hard picking of the hickory and the butternuts . This fare, together with the fresh water which they found at frequent intervals, quite satisfied the Indian, but Ranor had developed an appetite and he was constantly longing for fish or meat. One day the whir of a partridge stopped him and he saw a brace of the handsome birds poised on a fallen tree only a few yards away. At the same moment he saw at his feet a pile of good-sized jjebbles, shaped as if to fit the hands and, like baseballs, ready to throw. In a few seconds, with an imerring aim that surprised him, he had felled a partridge. As the bird came down, Tuwah, who had been walking ahead, turned and saw the deed. The Indian sprang back down the path and for the first time Ranor saw in his countenance an expression that was near wrath. Tuwah's eye-balls dilated and his arms were uplifted, although his fists were not clenched. The mere ges- ture restrained Ranor for a moment. Then he started into the brush to pick up the bird. Tuwah seized him and poured forth a long exhortation in the language which Ranor could not understand. Though the words were xmintelligible, the thought behind them was not. Tuwah was plainly upbraiding him for some very serious dereliction and into this imprecation Ranor felt that there entered something of awe, perhaps of superstition, as if he had offended deeply a religious tenet of the patriarchal red man. Though he was not frightened, Ranor was very deeply impressed and he felt that it would be imwise to persist in pursuit of the slain bird. After a moment Tuwah, with great dignity, led the way into the underbrush to the spot where lay Ranor 's quarry. He knelt over and examined the bird with tender solicitude. TUWAH'S PEOPLE 35 then closed his eyes, crossed his hands on his breast and bowed his head while he muttered as if in prayer. This ceremony over, he scooped a tiny grave, deposited the departed par- tridge therein and covered it over tenderly with earth and then with moss and leaves. Finally he stood off a few paces as if to measm-e his handiwork, but was not satisfied. Re- turning, he rearranged the little mound, smoothing it off and composing the near ground until it would have been difficult to locate its exact position. Near the spot he paused for a moment, again crossing his hands on his breast, and looked aloft, muttering a few words. Immediately, without so much as a glance at Ranor, for whom he had shown through- out the ceremony an almost contemptuous indifference, he resumed his march, while the young man obediently followed. Two days later they came out of the woods on the far side of the foothills. Throughout the past week they had been skirting the moimtains which towered above them to the north. Searching through his memory of geography and striving to check up the distances they probably had trav- elled, Ranor had come to the conclusion that they were some- where in southwestern Utah or in northwestern Arizona. The next change in the configuration of the country conAonced him that they were still in the great southwest, for now they came again to arid land, although they avoided entering it. On their south and west and partly on their east stretched vast.roUing mesas covered with short, thick grass and mottled with tiny wild flowers with here and there a clump of brush, though quite lacking in trees. Apparently it was a fertile place, with a rich loam, dry but of incomparable fertility, if water could be brought to it. Tuwah proceeded without the slightest hesitation directly into the heart of this arid waste. Early in the third day of this stage of the journey they came upon a coulee which had not been visible in the distance. At the bottom a tiny stream trickled and the vegetation was extremely rich, al- though lacking trees. They ascended the course of this 36 FRUIT OF THE DESERT stream all that day and at nightfall found themselves under the shade of a huge bluff of black earth. Tuwah climbed part way up this cliff and returned presently with an arm- ful of maize cakes which he had taken from some hidden res- ervoir. While welcoming the cakes, Ranor was vastly im- pressed with the Indian's sense of direction which had led him for weeks across the desert, through the Grand Canon, into the forests, around the mountains, along the mesas, and to this obscure spot where food awaited them. The next morning they skirted the base of this bluff, going up to the bed of the stream. As they proceeded Tuwah in- sisted that they walk in water for nearly a mile, thus obliter- ating all evidence of their progress. Toward mid-day Ranor realized that there was some radi- cal change in the demeanour of the Indian. Tuwah had become, if that were possible, self-conscious, and called a halt, removed his single garment and bathed himself in the stream very carefully. It was an ablution different from any in which he had indulged before as he seemed to bathe each portion of his body with ceremonious care. Done with himself he turned to Ranor and without a "by your leave," proceeded to bathe his young charge in the same manner. For the first time Ranor felt an unexplained fear, for there was a cxurious aloofness in the Indian's attitude. The ten- derness, the humanity he had been showing for so many weeks under so many trying circumstances, was now sup- planted with directness and he seemed to be carrying out a vital part of some strange ritual. As he bathed and massaged Ranor's limbs he muttered with a curious low rhythm what might have been a prayer or an incantation. His eyes lost their kindly sympathy and assumed a glazed introspection. Ranor had an uncanny feeling that this might be Abraham preparing his son, Isaac, for the sacrifice. However, in a short time Tuwah was satisfied. He re- placed his short breeches and motioned to Ranor to do like- wise. Then he led the way around a bend in the stream. TUWAH'S PEOPLE 37 In front of them spread a rocky tableland for probably five or six miles. It was as smooth as a city pavement and as bare. Across this the little cavalcade proceeded. As they marched, Ranor became aware of their nearness to habita- tion. At first he saw nothing living but there was an atmos- phere that seemed peopled with human beings. He felt certain that many generations had trod where he was passing and as the afternoon passed, there grew clearer on the far horizon a more tangible evidence of his nearness to his kind. First it was smoke ascending straight into the air, not in one but in dozens of spirals, from a space nestling at the base of a mountain into which the tableland melted. Then, as the dusk descended, he saw fires flash up here and there over a space of half a mile. From time to time these were blotted out as though persons had passed in front of them. Then he heard a comforting distant murmur, the indistinct and peaceful sounds that rise above the evening occupations of a settlement. Finally, directly toward them through the dusk approached an indistinct group. Ranor had one brief moment of joy in the thought that they had reached a mining town, but this was soon dispelled. Like a Roman senator returning from a victorious conquest in a far province Tuwah raised his right arm in majestic greeting, while directly in his path, oux of the dim Ught, loomed the figures of three old Indians with arms likewise uplifted. One after another the three embraced Tuwah in dignified solemnity. Here was another shock for Ranor. He had never before known of Indians who embraced or who even touched hands in salutation. He waited at a respectful distance while the four held a short conference in which many words of the unintelligible language were exchanged. Then the three newcomers advanced and stood in front of him while they looked at him with serene, appraising glances. They were very, very old indeed, and their white beards fell almost to their naked waists. 38 FRUIT OF THE DESERT As these patriarchs closed in behind Ranor, while Tuwah led the way toward the near-by settlement where the fires were burning brightly and where the cries of children could now be heard distinctly, a nameless apprehension smote him. It was not a hermit, after all, whom he had found. Instead, Tuwah had taken him to his people, but for what? CHAPTER VI The Fair Chief IN HIS weeks of association with Tuwah Ranor had learned a few words of the strange language. For in- stance, he knew that "ta," pronounced with a short "a," as in "man," meant "good," and that it also meant "yes." In fact, it seemed to be a word of salutation like "hello" or "how," while at the same time it meant an affirmative. The negative was "pu," which also meant "bad." The manner of utterance of these words lent colour to their meaning, for Tuwah said "pu" so slightingly as clearly to reveal con- tempt, while he uttered "ta" with an uplift in the voice, plainly denoting approval. Possessing only these slender guides to the native vocab- ulary, together with a few others less obvious, Ranor was now led along by the four old Indians toward the settlement which the coming of night had obscured from his eager vision. In the first conference over him two of the patriarchs had sharply said "ta," while from the third escaped a "pu" in diminuendo. Thus he figured that the vote began in his favour two to one, even if it did not include the previously demonstrated approval of his well-tried friend Tuwah. Yet there was an element of foreboding about the entire episode and especially in Tuwah 's changed attitude. Ever since the ceremonial bath in the creek he had seemed to be less a guide than a guard. The Indians, at a respectful distance, conducted him on toward the settlement. Around the first fire, which was built in a rocky cleft apparently made for it, were a number of 39 40 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Indian women engaged in preparing food. By its light he was able to see a good distance on each side. Everywhere he confronted stone houses. Here was something quite foreign to what he had known of Indians or of their ways. These were not Cliff Dwellers, and one must go far south into Mexico for the remains of the Aztec civilization, to discover Indians who lived in stone houses. Impatient for morning, so that he might examine these conditions more in detail, Ranor was taken on into the heart of the settlement, past a score or more of the houses, until the four Indians stopped in front of one that seemed larger than the others. Into this Tuwah led the way, beckoning to Ranor to follow, which he did, while the three others closed the rear. During their progress through the settlement Ranor could see indistinct forms gathering at respectful distances between the houses and he heard low muttering. But now, as he passed within the stone structure, a crowd gathered outside the door. The moment he disappeared voices rose and he could more plainly hear what was being said. Through the babble there was an interminable repetition of "ta" and "pu." These seemed to be duelling one with the other until, finally, in the lengthy and noisy argument, the "pu's" died down and gradually were heard no more. "Evidently the 'ta's' have it," Ranor smiled to himself as Tuwah pointed to a stone bench. On this Ranor sat and now had time to observe that in each corner of a large room, high on a stone pedestal, were shallow vessels from which came dull Ughts in broad flames smoking atrociously and fining the air with a powerful odour of unrefined petrol, burn- ing through hemp wicks. After a few words the three newcomers — evidently the Committee of Welcome — bowed low before Ranor, spreading forth their hands in a gesture which he could only interpret as one of friendliness, and withdrew, leaving him alone with Tuwah. In a moment an old squaw came in with a smooth platter of polished oak on which lay half a dozen freshly THE FAIR CHIEF 41 baked little maize cakes. Presently another came in bearing a gourd of steaming hot water. These were placed on the stone bench beside Ranor, after which the squaws withdrew. Then Tuwah motioned to Ranor that he might eat, and also departed. Ranor found the cakes similar in taste to those that Tuwah had furnished him on the long march but, being fresh from the fire and evidently freshly made and fried in some oil in which there was mingled a very tasty mixture of salt and pepper, they appealed powerfully to his whetted appetite and he devoured them with extreme relish, washing them down with the hot water. In a little while Tuwah reentered the dwelling bearing Ranor's blankets and a bag of maize husks, which he placed in the corner indicating that there Ranor might make his bed. Then, after his customary guttural words of "good- night," he put out the lights by placing over them stone caps, and withdrew. After a moment Ranor went to the doorway which was un- barred and in which there appeared to be no door. There was no evidence of any desire to restrain him from leaving the dwelling. By the Ught of the stars, for there was no moon, he thought he saw a row of Indians squatted on their haimehes and silently observing him. For a long time he looked at them silently. They did not move; they said nothing. He stepped outside, inhaling a few draughts of the fresh mountain air. The fires had now gone out, though he could still see the embers glowing at various places in the distance. Except for that row of mysterious, indistinct forms apparently watching him from across the way, no life was visible. Reassured, Ranor sought a much-desired sleep on the corn husks in the rear of the dwelling. However, the novelty of his surroundings and the excitement of the discoveries of the day kept him awake for some time. Where could he be? If any white man before him had penetrated here, the fact surely would have been known. What Indians were these who spoke a tongue unknown to students of Indian dialects, who 42 FRUIT OF THE DESERT lived in stone houses, apparently in a permanent settlement and in the dim fastnesses of the mid North American con- tinent, so open, so approachable, and yet apparently undis- covered by any white men in any of the last four centuries? Eventually Ranor went to sleep, and a very healthful and contented sleep it was, despite the mystery which surroimded him and the fancied insecurity of his position. At sunrise he was wakened by the touch of Tuwah who was closely at- tended by a squaw bearing a goiu*d of steaming water. Tuwah indicated that this was for Ranor to drink, and he did drink with great relish. The squaw withdrew and Tuwah motioned for Ranor to follow him. They passed out of the house and Ranor surveyed the settlement for the first time, in daylight. He saw a collection of perhaps several hundred stone houses, all built in the simple, rectangular lines of the ordinary adobe huts of the Southwest. Chiefly Ranor was impressed with the fact that these were hardly the dwelling places of nomads, but that this village had seen permanent occupation for several generations, at least, if not for centuries. Years before, in his sophomore vacation travels in Italy, he had visited the ruins of Pompeii and there he had seen the narrow stone streets with the thresholds of the doors smoothed down by the patter of sandalled feet that for gen- erations had crossed them. Now in this settlement he observed a similar phenomenon. Streets, though not so narrow as those in Pompeii, were paved with stones which appeared to have been originally rough-hewn, but which had been worn smooth only by the constant use of generations of dwellers there. The houses, too, were unmistakably very old. The cross- beams of solid, roimd-hewn tiijibers were weather beaten and cracked, but staunch as the stone and as durable as steel. There were spaces for windows and for doors but coverings for neither. The roofs were formed of slabs of slate lain on cross-timbers stretched at narrow intervals and while there THE FAIR CHIEF 43 was nowhere evidence of the regularity of modem carpentry, still there were many signs of methodical care. Evidently custom had had its sway and there had been neither haste nor improvisation in the building. From the beginning, and constantly, Ranor was deeply impressed by the omnipresent cleanliness. This was Spot- less Town, indeed. He had been in primitive villages in the East Indies, and in countiy towns in Italy and in Spain. These, in comparison to the Indian village, were filthy. Even the New England towns familiar to his boyhood were slovenly compared to this. Nowhere could he see any sign of refuse; nothing had been left exposed, neither in the streets nor between the houses, and in his first cursory examination there seemed to be no backyards littered with the flotsam of living. As Tuwah and Ranor passed up the street toward the mountain, the Indians were emerging from their houses. None of them was clothed above the waist and none of them wore more than a single garment, the women a short skirt and the men short breeches such as he had become accustomed to seeing on Tuwah. AH of the children under the age of ten or twelve years were quite nude. The glances which passed his way he felt were only those of friendly inquiry. Apparently whatever negation had been expressed toward his arrival had been effectively answered the night before by the chorus of "ta's" which had finally drowned out the feeble "pu's," and if, as he imagined, the qiudity of his welcome had been put to a vote, the aflSrmative had won and the minority, if existent, was neither vocal nor evident. There was no sign of the old men who had first greeted him nor, in fact, of any men at all. For the moment he saw only women and children and youths not yet in their twenties. The fires at the street corners were being lighted by old squaws, while the younger squaws were coming from the houses bearing cooking utensils and eating materials. Presently, Tuwah and Ranor arrived at the far edge of the 44 FRUIT OF THE DESERT village and disappeared down a gentle declivity which led to the side of a stream. Before they reached the water they came upon a level space, perhaps an acre in extent, which was bounded on three sides by a high bluff and on the other by the stream. At the top of the bluff grew a few trees which threw a pleasant shade over this secluded spot. Directly under the trees was a long, low stone house unUke the dwellings they had left. It had but a single opening and this was the door- way directly in the front, but so low that Ranor was obliged to stoop as he entered it. Moreover, it was the only covered doorway he had yet seen, as a heavy curtain of rough, soft hemp hung before it. Tuwah lifted this curtain and a cloud of steam escaped, but he smiled encouragingly and signed to Ranor to enter. The yoimg man instinctively flinched and held back, but Tuwah plunged boldly in calling out "ta, ta," whereupon Ranor gingerly advanced, pausing with every step. He found himself shortly in what was nothing more nor less than a steam bath. Although he felt creepy with the strangeness and suddenness of this peculiar aspect of a higher civilization he still had some lingering apprehension that it might be an ingenious method of Indian torture. However, he soon be- came accustomed to it, and in a moment the sweat was dripping from every pore of his body. After perhaps fifteen minutes of this intensive perspiration Tuwah led him outside and around the low bath house to a granite slab. There the Indian massaged the young man until he felt a wondrous glow of vitality, with an unwonted strength and physical confidence. Tuwah now led the way to the stream into which he plunged without hesitation. Ranor followed and the two enjoyed a vigorous half hour splashing in the clear depths of this moimtain freshness. Then they resumed their garments and returned to the village. Ranor was now all smiles and rosy delight. "That was a first-class Turkish bath, old scout," he called to Tuwah, who. THE FAIR CHIEF 45 esky divils are keepin' me here with their cussed renegades, an' givin' me jus' enough o' their blasted corn cakes to keep me alive, no more. Doin' that to a feller an' shuttin' him up a thousand miles away from any right kind o' human bein's, is jus' about th' limit fer torture." THE DESPERADO'S STORY 95^ "Your words are extreme, like your acts," Ranor answered, sharply, "tell me how you got here." The desperado, apparently vastly relieved at the oppor- tunity to talk with a white man, poured forth his story volubly. It covered months of wanderings and vicissitudes throughout the western country, but the latter part of it alone interested Ranor. Darrow, so he said, one day in southern Utah, came across a dying prospector whom the desperado had succoured. Ranor reserved his opinion of that "succour," remembering his own experience. However, Darrow said that the pros- pector was in the final delirium of a fever, and in a lucid moment had confided to the desperado, who had given him some brandy, that he knew of a lost tribe of Indians far in the southwest, who lived in stone houses built around a fabulous mine from which they took precious stones of many varieties: diamonds and emeralds and rubies, and others of a different colour still more precious than even rubies or diamonds. With his dying breath the prospector had described for Darrow the location of this mine, but had warned him that the Indians were fanatical and guarded their treasure care- fully, and by ingenious devices. "The man that gets that mine will be richer'n Rockerfeller," were the last words of the feverish old prospector. "When the old boy had cashed in," said Darrow, "I says to myself, 'Uke as not its nothin' but a bad dream, but it won't cost nothin' to make the riffle'. He guv me a map he'd drawn with red chalk on a piece of gmmy sack. That map got me here. "One day, comin' down outa the north, followin' the map just in the way the old boy directed, fer he'd warned me against goin' by any valley or river bed or ravine, I clum th' tip top o' yonder mountain. I see them devilish houses jus' like they'd been built by whites, an' fer the fust time I got a real notion that mebbe they wuz somethin' into that thur diamond mine idle. 96 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "Waal, my grub was runnin' low. I was afeerd to shoot game seein' as how they might hear me, an' I ain't no hand to live on nuts and berries like these heathen do. So I took a chanct an' come down the mountain. The old boy had told me these redskins — Sunnites, he called 'em — ^hadn't guns, or bows an' arrows, either. I hardly believed him, an' yet it made me a bit easy in my mind as I came along. But, what ye think? "Half way down that mountain I rim into a kind of a rope, or a net or some devihsh contrivance, that I ain't puzzled out yet what it was. It nm right around my neck an' triced me up quicker'n scat. Th' more I tried to get out of it, th' worse I got caught in it. Perhaps I made a bit of a noise thrashin' around thur in th' underbrush. Anyway, a little bit later a couple o' their yoimg huskies jumped at me from behind, like th' cowardly sneaks they be. I hadn't no chanct to draw or nothin'. They tied me up slick as a padridge ready fer bastin'. " Then they took me before a lot o' old geezers with long white beards, heathenish old rascals that made my blood run cold, th' way they looked at me 's if I wuz a t'rantula or a horned toad. Bimeby they chucked me in here where I learns from this poor gang o' red pals that the amable intention is to let me rot on quarter rations. "Why, do ye know, I ain't hed a taste o' meat since I come here? Nothin' but com. It's purty near turned my insides into sieve paper. Until I clapped eyes on you this momin' I'd been wishin' they'd shoot me an' be done with it." Ranor was vastly interested, of course, while the predica- ment of the desperado alternately pleased and terrified him. The man appeared to be in his prime, not more than forty years old, hardy and of powerful physique. Moreover, he was not without his native wit and a crude sort of courage, though, as Ranor well knew, he would lack all compunction in a desperate crisis. THE DESPERADO'S STORY 97 Darrow's tongue, being loosened, he rambled on: "That white gal who brang ye here tried to hide ye but I got eyes like a hawk. I piped ye, though I didn't reco'nize ye as my old pal from the Mojave till you turned up t'night." "You mean the High Priestess?" Ranor severely corrected him. "Priestess? Call her what ye like, she's white same as ye an' me, an' they won't let me see nobody else, an' she won't talk with me. 'Peers she don't know plain American. Fust I thought she wuz shammin', but mebbe she's on th' level. Only recently it's come to my mind how she got here. These varmints musta kidnapped her when she wuz a baby, right outa her cradle. 'Tain't reasonable to s'pose otherwise, 'cause she plays their game too well. She's on to all their ways, an' hits off all th' bogus nonsense o' them savages like she's one of 'em. But I think I got her number. Her name's Priscilla Mimster. She wuz lifted outa Colorado twenty years ago, an' they's a permanent reward o' ten thousand dollars hung up for her return in th' Fust National Bank o' Denver." Ranor was now more than eager in his attention. "How could you know all of this? " he asked, in a tone that betrayed, his anxiety. "Ain't th' reward been in every annual poUce circular for nearly twenty year now? An' who knows more about them things than Slim Darrow, whose picture's been right along- side o' hem? Why, that gal, Priscilla, an' Slim oughta know each other in th' dark, an' yet she passes me up like we ain't never been interdooced. "Fust time I see her, pardner, I took a strong fancy to her looks, but lately her corn cakes has peeved my natcherly angelic disposition, an' when I see how she treats me, after our pictures bein' friendly an' us both white, too, I can't help sayin' — ^now ye gotta pardon me fer this — she's nothin' but a cussed snob!" CHAPTER Xin BOPTT WITHOUT being specifically warned Ranor realized that it would be dangerous to speak with Tuwah or with any of the Indians about the prison cave . Much as he disliked tJie idea of conspiracy or collusion with Slim Darrow, yet he felt himself drawn again and again to the cave to talk with the desperado. On one point he was reassured. Darrow told him that no Indian ever approached the cave and that the only person the prisoners ever saw was Izara. A chance remark from one of the incarcerated Indians enUghtened Ranor as to the reason for this. It was to avoid all chance of contamination, the Sunnites believing that the pure spirit of the virgin Priestess was the only one not endangered by contact with the crim- inals. Evidently the Suimites had perfect confidence in the stout quality of their stones and bars. Only when a new prisoner was to be jailed did any of the Sunnites appear. These events occurred always in the presence of a committee of patriarchs. For a few days Ranor obeyed Izara's parting injunction and made no further attempt to see her in the hour before dawn, and he deemed it discreet not to approach the vicinity of her palace. Yet each afternoon he paid a short visit to the cave, his chief purpose being to hear something more of Izara through the lips of the desperado. She never missed a morning, Darrow told him, but always came with the maize cakes and for the ablutions. Ranor very seriously doubted, of course, that Izara could BOPU 99 be the kidnapped child, Priscilla Munster. Darrow swore that she bore a marked resemblance to the picture of the baby in the police circular which he had seen so often, but Ranor attributed this alleged "resemblance" more to the fancy of the outlaw than to an actuality. Even if Izara were that child, it would be well-nigh impossible to note in the features of a woman of twenty even a faint relation to an undoubtedly badly printed photograph of a child in its cradle. However, he accepted the explanation as not beyond the bounds of possibility, although he classified it along with the prospector's dream as one of the absurd imaginings of the villainous highwayman. The precious stones interested Darrow far more than the origin of Izara, and in every talk he had with Ranor he asked many questions about the mine. Out of instinctive friend- ship for the Indians Ranor denied that he knew anything of a mine, and protested that he doubted if one existed, but in an xmguarded moment during one of their early interviews he had spoken of the stones worn as ornaments by the patriarchs, Darrow's eyes gUttered at mention of them. "Them's th' ones," fiercely ejaculated the outlaw. "I knew th' old prospector wuzn't dreamin'. Looka here, boy, ye're not a bad feller. I'll take ye in with me on this. We'll cut fifty fifty. Ye imdo a couple o' these bars an' let me out o' here. Then we'll jus' sack all th' purty stones an' beat it. I know th' way. I'll get ye out. A quart o' those things will make us both rich." Ranor laughed at this perverted proposition, but instead of flatly telling Darrow that there was no possibility of their partnership in crime, he contented himself with expressing a doubt as to the value of the sunnites, saying that they lacked lustre, and looked only like coloured pebbles. "Diamonds an' rubies are jus' like that till they're cut and polished," countered Darrow. " I know from what these ' red pals o' mine in here say, that th' redskins won't fix up th' stuff — its 'ginst their reUgion or somethin' But 100 FRUIT OP THE DESERT ye jus' get aholt o' one of them sunnites an' cut 'er down with a piece o' flint an' rub 'er smooth. Ye'U see! It'll flash fit to blind ye. Only don't let th' heathen onto what ye're doin', or they mought clap ye in here alongside o' me." At first Ranor was not tempted even by curiosity to learn more of the sunnites, but a few days later he made another attempt to see Izara on her morning journey with the cakes, and she refused even to speak to him when he accosted her. For some inexplicable reason this cut him more deeply than her previous aloofness, and he began to realize the hopeless- ness of coming closer to her or of ever breaking down the apparently insurmountable barrier which separated them. He seized her by the shoulders. It was the first time he had touched her, but he talked so rapidly that he did not at once observe how she took it. "This nonsense must come to an end," he exclaimed, with great warmth. "If the Indians think you are a priestess I don't mind. I can worship you, too, as they do, but you are also a woman. I am a man. I love you as. a man loves a woman, and not as an Indian worships. This can't go on. We are of the same race. You must hsten to me. Sleeping or awake I think only of you." With a long sigh which was half a moan, and which haimted him ever afterward, she shpped from his grasp without a word, and ran with the speed of a wild thing to the protection of the linden grove where lay her domicile. That afternoon he determined to adopt the suggestion of the desperado and try to learn if the stones taken from the mine by the Indians really possessed any unusual lustre. If he was to do this he was now confronted with a serious problem — ^how to get one of the stones. He knew the mine was guarded day and night. The stones which had been taken from it were worn only on ceremonial occasions, and for the present were secluded in the houses of the patriarchs. However, he remembered that all had worn their regalias BOPU 101 for the OUa Dance on the day when the puma had so rudely broken up the assemblage. Questioning the boy acolyte who before had befriended him he learned that one of the largest of the suiinites in the re- galia of the High Priestess had been lost on that fateful occa- sion. In the supreme moment of the dance Izara had slipped from her body the mesh which held all but one of them, and this had been recovered, but she had worn about her neck, as a pendant, a stone fully an inch and a half in diameter. This she had lost somewhere, and it had never been recovered, although, unknown to Ranor, all parts of the glen and the ravine in which she said she had passed the night had been searched and researched, by parties of Indians, day after day. Izara, however, had neglected to mention to them that the first part of her flight had been directly up the moimtain- side where she had been carried by Ranor. Therefore in this direction no search had been made. Ranor decided that here might be the opportimity he sought, so he searched the glen. The first afternoon his efforts were as fruitless as had been those of the Indians who had preceded him. The next day, however, he went over, inch by inch, the scene of his flight with her. Finally, on the spot where he had paused, and from which they had looked down into the fires below, he found the large sunnite. The hemp thong which held it had been parted, and it had fallen under some leaves. Ranor secreted the stone and returned to the village. Part way back he met Bopu, who halted him. "Ah, Lanu," said the Indian, "you wander much alone." "I gather wild flowers," replied Ranor, exhibiting a hand- ful. He had adopted this hobby so that it might readily explain to all the Indians his frequent excursions alone, away from the village, and it had been accepted by all as a harmless and reasonable pastime. Ranor never appeared from one of his excursions to the prison cave, or from one of 102 FRUIT OF THE DESERT 1 lis trips to intercept Izara, without bearing a bouquet of fresh blossoms plucked from the fields or the woods. Bopu looked at him from under his long eyelids. "The Lanu perhaps is catena." ("Carena" was a Sunnite word meaning a species of madness visited upon young lovers, supposedly by the moon.) Ranor felt that Bopu was insinuating more than he cared to say openly, but he resolved not to accept the challenge, at least not then. "Among my people," he replied, "flowers are highly valued. I love them even as do your people th*i^- waamtes" "They do not last as long," answered Bopu, "nor are they so hard to find." Again Ranor felt an insinuation, although the Indian indicated no ulterior thought beyond that vague hint in his words. Ranor smiled and hastened on to his dwelling where he secreted the rescued sunnite. After that each morning he repaired to a secluded cleft in a ravine several miles south of the village in the direction opposite to that in which lay the prison cave. Here, with a piece of flint, he hacked away rather awkwardly and crudely at the surface of the stone. It was indeed hard — ^harder than the flint which broke again and again under the impacts which he made. One day he found a lignum vitae plant, the bole of which was of considerable thickness. Here was the hardest wood of which he had any knowledge, and he used it as a rubbing board in his attempt to polish the sunnite. For many days he spent all of the hoiu-s during which he could seclude him- self vigorously rubbing the smmite against the lignum vitae bole. After a great deal of exhaustive labour he felt that he was being rewarded, for the dull glaze disappeared from the surface of the stone and in its place there flashed a molten fire that came out as though with superb glee from a long im- prisonment, and which answered the rays of the sun as boldly as if from a diamond. But, how many diamonds were there as big as a walnut? BOPU lOS Yet, each day he had an uncanny feeling that he was being watched. He took every precaution to protect himself from prying ^es, and never began his operations until he had scoured all of the surrounding territory. Despite this care frequently he was conscious of some subtle and maleficent influence surrounding him. Bopu was engaged each day with the men in the maize fields or in digging herbs or yucca plants from the woods. He was a man about thirty years old, or at least ten years beyond the matrimonial age. Ranor asked Tuwah why Bopu was not married. "The patriarchs have not yet found him fit for any of the maidens," replied the old Indian simply, but he would not elucidate, and to Ranor's repeated inquiries Tuwah would vouchsafe no more satisfactory answer. Ranor determined to set a watch for Bopu, and the fascina- tion of this, together with the growing splendour of the sun- nite, sufficed to fill the time for several weeks that followed. Before many days had passed Ranor became satisfied that each evening when the sun was down Bopu sneaked out of the village, down to the river bank, where he spent several hours before returning to his house. He tried to follow the Indian, but on each occasion he lost sight of him in the thick shadows and realized that the superior knowledge of the configuration of the country possessed by the red man enabled him to elude pursuit. Finally, one morning, in the hour before dawn, Ranor again sought to intercept Izara, and with that end in mind waited for her on the path between her palace and the prison cave. As he crouched in the shadows he was startled at the sudden appearance, directly athwart his advance, of a dusky form which seized him by the arm. "It is Bopu," cried Ranor, with involuntary fright. "The Lanu gathers flowers, I take it," sneered the Indian. Ranor recovered himself instantly. "Quite right," he said, good-naturedly. "Will you join me?" "Go to your house," hissed Bopu, "and if you follow me 104 FRUIT OF THE DESERT one evening more I will denounce you to the patriarchs as one who unlawfully seeks the sacred Izara." Ranor felt that it was high time to go and, picking some anemones from a mossy bank near by, he departed, with a mustered nonchalance, closely followed by Bopu. That evening Ranor discovered the secret of Bopu's regu- lar visits to the river bank, for he saw the daughter of one of his neighbours, a girl who was being prepared for the next OUa Dance, slip away through the shadows and disappear at the same time that Bopu, in an opposite direction, was starting on his usual nocturnal course. Suddenly, fearful for the safety of the girl, and little re- alizing what a fatal termination his intervention might have, Ranor slipped out through the village on the trail of Bopu. CHAPTER XIV The High Chimb IF RANOR could have foreseen the swift events which were to follow his impulsive action, perhaps he might have hesi- tated. His chief thought was that he must save the girl, a graceful little creature, scarcely more than fifteen, whom he had frequently observed playing with the other children, the sauciest and most agile of them all. He could not forget that Izara had told him that the only crimes committed in the tribe were inspired by Bopu, and while he may have doubted the renegade's monopoly of evil, yet he now felt a personal responsibility when, apparently, he alone had ob- served the suspicious incident. Even at the risk of incurring Bopu's more active enmity, he felt he must warn the pretty little creature. It was a moonless night and the fires at the street comers had died down so that only the embers could be seen. How- ever, the stars were extremely briUiant, and as there were no woods on the tableland, or along that portion of the ravine for which Bopu was bound, and the air being clear, it was possible to see fairly well. Yet Ranor lost sight of Bopu at the river's edge. For a moment he feared that he had lost the trail completely. He dashed up and down rather excitedly, repeating to him- self that in all the long months of his life among the Sunnites he had never once known of a maiden being permitted outside of her house after nightfall. If only his new friends had not been so secretive. If only they had been willing to discuss with him their manners and customs, he would feel freer 105 106 FRUIT OF THE DESERT now in knowing what to do. Yet he was not deterred. He was determined at least to let the girl know that he, the friendly outsider, had uttered a warning. All was silent darkness, lit only by the ambient stars, when suddenly he came upon a little clump of willows. Without hesitation he plunged within. Instantly the silence was pierced with staccato sharpness by the shriU shriek of a frightened maiden, one long, heart-rending cry which echoed over the plain and into the mountains, only to be as suddenly sti£ed. Ranor could see nothing. He drew back a few paces as the clvunp of willows covered only a short space of ground, thinking that if he penetrated into the denser darkness who- ever was hidden could escape without being seen. Perhaps a minute elapsed when there appeared over the edge of the river bank some stalwart forms. Presently they stood beside Ranor and he recognized two of the middle-aged Indians who formed the guard which he seldom saw, but which he beUeved was constantly stationed at the avenues of approach to the tableland. Without uttering a syllable they questioned him with swift glances, and he pointed silently into the clump of willows. They plunged within, and presently reappeared. In the grasp of one of the guards was the piteous and fright- ened figure of the girl. The other held the defiant renegade, ablaze with wrath. He confronted Ranor, and if his arms had not been pinioned by strong, restraining hands, he might have leaped at the throat of the white man. "Ah, Lanu!" sputtered Bopu, with indistinct fury, "you are the informer! Better that you never had been born than that you should do this ! Misery shall come upon you, and you shall groan and cry aloud, and you shall beg for mercy, and your flesh shall scorch, and your bones shall wither under the red glare of the sun!" This outburst seemed to Ranor, of coiu-se, merely the in- sensate frothings of an apprehended miscreant. His chief THE HIGH CRIME 107 concern was for the girl. Had her cry been caused by Bopu or by his sudden advent? For the moment he was to remain in doubt. The party proceeded rapidly to the village, and thence to the council chamber of the patriarchs. This was in the larg- est stone house where Ranor had slept during his first night among the Simnites. The oil lamps were lit by a squaw, and soon were smoking atrociously. Presently the patriarchs came in and seated themselves on the row of stone benches along the sides. Into the centre, and a little to one side, Bopu was led, and there released. Into the centre, and a little to the other side, Ranor was conducted by a guard. Then Tuwah entered and took his station in the doorway. Ranor, beginning to fear that he had brought deep trouble to the maiden, when he had planned only rescue, looked about for her, but she had dis- appeared. In a moment he was startled to find himself addressed by the eldest of the patriarchs. "Stranger," said the very old man, solemnly, "this night you are received into the tribe. This night you become one of the Nahneets, for weal or woe. Know you, therefore, this: that it is the law of the Nahneets that one who brings forth against another the accusation of a crime must either prove the charges, or else suffer the penalty which otherwise will be visited upon the accused." The patriarch seatied himself, and a dense silence reigned, while Ranor, looking toward Bopu, saw in the renegade only a sneering insouciance. Suddenly the bewildered white man felt faint. The thought of the nameless penalty, which he well knew to be imprisonment in the cave, confronted him with a terrifying swiftness, and for the moment he felt that all hope was gone. Instinctively he looked about for a seat, as he had an urgent desire for one, but all the benches were occupied. Tuwah, from the doorway, sympathetically divining Ranor's perturbation, whispered a few indistinguishable 108 FRUIT OF THE DESERT words to the nearest patriarch, who rose and addressed the neophyte. "Be not alarmed," said this old man in a soft voice, "the Nahneets render only justice. No longer are you a Lanu, now you are a Nahneet, and the law shall be rendered unto you even as if you were of our blood and our bone." Ranor was overwhelmed. It seemed as though he were to be on trial, and not the scoundrel he had unintentionally apprehended. Though the patriarch's words were reassur- ing, the atmosphere in the council chamber continued to be forbidding, and yet Ranor could not help but realize, as he at all times did realize, that these very old men were possessed of an upright sense of honour, and of a curious ancient wis- dom, and that their sense of justice was the distillation from the ripened experience of generations of forbears who had handed down to them from time immemorial the laws of the tribe. The oldest of the patriarchs again addressed Ranor. "Bare your heart to the wise men of the Nahneets," said he, "and relate what you know against your brother, Bopu." Ranor hesitated a moment, somewhat startled to find him- self a "brother" of the renegade, and then, in the archaic Sunnite simplicity which he thought it best to adopt, he said: "O wise men of the Nahneets, in the white tribe which bore me, even as with, you, my new brothers, the virtue of a maid is precious, more precious than the life of a man. Whoso imperils it is less than the beasts." The patriarchs glanced from one to the other approvingly. Ranor, feeling he had started well, continued, "Often have I seen the daughter of my neighbour, light hearted as the doe in summer, fair as the fields at dawn, intercepted by him that ye call Bopu. My fears were aroused when I was told by Tuwah that he was unmarried because ye, O! wise men, had not foimd him fit to be a father of the Nahneets. This night again I saw him leave the village even as the fair maiden, frail and lovely as the elder bloom in spring, departed by THE HIGH CEIME 109 another way. Thinking only that she was perhaps inspired by the wayward ignorance of youth I sought to warn and guide her, as became my duty to a sister of the Nahneets." Ranor paused. Bopu was regarding him with silent con- tempt and he realized only too well why the bringing of such charges was so grave a thing; the penalty for failure to prove them was as great as the punishment of the crime itself. However, he had begim; he would go to the end. "I lost sight of him," Ranor continued, "and was search- ing along the river bed when I entered the willows. The scream which your guards heard resulted. The rest they, can tell. That is all." When Ranor had finished his story the oldest patriarch turned to the tribe's Lothario. "Now," he said with the levelling intonation of an examining magistrate, "the wise men are prepared to hear thy explanation, Bopu." The renegade stood easily and jauntily, apparently con- fident, and without the sUghtest apprehension, "It is a lie," he answered, but with a serious demeanour which the gravity of the situation demanded, "this Lanu, whom ye must pres- ently condemn, is angry with the innocent Bopu because he has detected the Lanu spying upon the sacred person of the High Priestess whom the Lanu covets with a mortal desire." At this the patriarchs revealed a sudden excitement in which they exchanged a few hurried guttural words so rapidly spoken that Ranor could not distinguish what was said. Then, after a brief moment, the oldest of the patriarchs re- marked sternly to Bopu, "Are you prepared to stand or fall upon this accusation?" The renegade smiled suavely, and bowed his head hiunbly. "It is not necessary, O! wisest of the wise," said he, "let him first prove his charge against Bopu." The patriarchs looked from one to the other, gravely nodded their heads, and then composed themselves again in silent serenity. Meanwhile, an indistinct murmur which had begun farther down the village street had swelled into 110 FRUIT OF THE DESERT an angry imprecation, and in a moment there appeared in the doorway two old squaws, bearing between them the girl who had been apprehended with Bopu on the river bank. She was in a state of exhaustion, and they deposited her in the centre of the council chamber in a heap upon the bare earth. She was stripped of all clothing, her hair was shorn close to her head, her body was smeared with wet ashes, and she lay huddled before these stem old men in tragic ignominy. The chief patriarch addressed the squaw who stood above the girl, "The wise men would know, O ! oldest Mother of the Nahneets, what you may say to them." The aged woman, toothless, wrinkled, and bent, did not confront, directly, any of the glances which were cast upon her, but she mumbled as though the calamity were her own: "This maiden is lost to the Nahneets. She may never dance, with her sisters among the ollas as the sun goes down." Instantly, as one man, the twelve patriarchs rose, while the oldest uttered judgment. "Go," said he, pointing to the limp form of the girl, "let no young man look upon her again! May her days henceforth be spent only with the women! The council has spoken." The squaws seized the girl and bore her away with a swift- ness that was almost terrifying. At no time while she was in the chamber did the piteous little creature seem possessed of her senses, and as she was carried out, she was as limp as though life had departed from her body. Ranor upbraided himself silently as he was swept with a sickening revulsion of feeling. Oh, why had he dared to interfere? Whatever he had contemplated, it had not been this, for he wanted anything rather than to be "brother" to men who could devise a punishment so hideous. He felt no relief at the appearance of this dumb but convincing witness to the truth of his worst suspicions. He had not even sought the punishment of Bopu, he merely had hoped to ^)are the lovely girl, scarcely more than a child, and he had precipitated — ^this ! THE HIGH CRIME 111 The tension now seemed to have relaxed a trifle, and Ranor, consumed with pity for the girl, hardly realized that no longer was any attention being paid to him. He looked toward Tuwah, and received from his friend a further and even more reassuring glance. Events, however, now culminated, for the old men came to their next decision rapidly. If they were acting as a jury they evidenced no poU, for a few muttered words from one to the other in a very low and indistinct tone su£Sced for them to realize that there was no dissenting voice. Kanor looked toward Bopu. The renegade stood jauntily confident as before, with the suggestion of a smile on his firm, sullen features. Presently the oldest patriarch addressed him. "O! you known to the Nahneets as Bopu," said he who acted as the chief justice, "hear the doom which the wise men have discovered that the Sun has written against thy earthly life. Henceforth you are a Nahneet, but not of them. Henceforth you shall live In a rock like a snake, and never again, while water runs, shall the sun shine upon you, nor shall you ever again see the upright ones of the tribe which bore you! The council has spoken." The aged men signed to Tuwah at the door. Tuwah passed the signal, and instantly there appeared the two guards who had brought Bopu to the council chamber. They seized him, and were about to start when the renegade turned and addressed the patriarchs. "O! Wise men," humbly began the renegade as he bowed his head, "you who rule the Nahneets with justice under the law, one moment, I pray you!" "It is forbidden for any one to speak with the condemned," replied the oldest patriarch, as he averted his countenance, while the others likewise turned their backs. Bopu's voice came with stem insistence and a hint of de- fiance as he continued: "I invoke only the law of the Nah- neets. Is it not the right of one condemned to escape his 112 FRUIT OF THE DESERT pumshment if he reveals another who is guilty of the Crime of Crimes, the High Crime?" Slowly the patriarchs turned and confronted Bopu as he stood staunchly in the centre of the chamber, held firmly in the grasp of the two guards. "If I reveal one who has committed the High Crime is it not the law that I may go free, O! wise men?" he persisted, with that granite imper- turbability that distinguished all the tribe. The patriarchs looked from one to the other in the gravest apprehension. They were plainly not only startled but frightened. For a moment not a word was spoken and Ranor felt terrified with a nameless awe, as though an unspoken mystery were about to afflict all alike. At length the oldest patriarch said suddenly: "Beware! O! you who were Bopu, know you not that one who brings the accusation of the High Grime must himself suffer the extreme penalty if the accusation be false?" "Full well I know, O! wise men," answered Bopu, and there was a ringing elation, an undertone of triumph in his voice as he levelled a finger directly at Ranor; "and Bopu is prepared to meet his maker, the Sim, if this Lanu be not guilty of the Crime of Crimes." Obeying a swift nod from the oldest patriarch, one of the guards passed instantly to Ranor, and seized and pinioned his arms. CHAPTER XV The Death Sentence RANOR was not to know until the following day the character of the High Crime of which, apparently, he stood accused. At first he thought it must be the secret and forbidden converse with the High Priestess. Of this he might easily be proven guilty, but he dismissed the contingency when he remembered that Bopu had openly accused him of it without creating the mysterious intensity of suspicion which immediately siurounded him when the renegade had launched his final desperation. For what seemed a long interval of time there was com- plete silence. Then the oldest patriarch said: "The judg- ment seat where must appear one accused of the High Crime is, by the law of the Nahneets, the altar in the Temple of the Sun. There, in the morning, let the accuser and his accused be brought face to face. There let the evidence be produced. There will judgment be justly rendered by the wise men of the Nahneets. The council has spoken." The patriarchs filed slowly from the building without a further word. They were followed by Bopu, closely guarded. As soon as they were gone Ranor was bound securely to a stone bench, after which all of the lights but one were ex- tinguished. By the side of this light a guard remained standing as he silently gazed upon the captive. For a long time Ranor lay inert, striving in vain to puzzle out his predicament. In this room he had spent his first night among the Sunnites, though long since he had been domiciled in one of the smaller dwellings. The extremely 113 114 FRUIT OF THE DESERT forbidding nature of the proceedings in which he had just been an unwilling central figure necessarily filled his mind with forebodings. However, his months of intimate life with this Indian tribe had served to satisfy him that they were far removed from the savage customs familiar, in one form or another, among practically all the aborigines in America. He had been told over and over again that they did not kill, and although his belief in their altruistic sim- plicity had been shaken in the discovery of the prison cave, and although he had been horrified at the primal inhumanity of the water test, he yet was confident that they would not proceed to the last extremity in pimishment, even of the "Crime of Crimes," whatever that might be. Had not the stoic regimen of the tribe restored him completely to health? Had not one of them saved his life ? Despite these reassurances which he sought in the dead of night, his situation was enough to terrify one possessed even of the strongest nerves. Again and again he glanced toward the guard who never relaxed his vigil. For a long time neither spoke. However, Ranor could not sleep and even- tually he convinced himself, against all appearances, that he might find some friendly counsel or assistance. He im- agined that in the steady eyes of the Indian guard he detected a feeling of compassion. Indeed, tenderness and sym- pathy and affection were, as he well knew, ruling traits among the Sunnites, and he felt confident that he could make an effective app)eal to these elements which previously had so well won his esteem. "Brother," said he, finally, in a low whisper, "will you do a slight service for one sorely afflicted? " The dark eyes of the Sunnite seemed to glow affirmatively but his sharply chiselled lips did not move. "I would speak with Tuwah," Ranor persisted. The guard gravely shook his head. There was another long silence during which Ranor was made to realize that he could have no commimication not sanctioned THE DEATH SENTENCE 115 by the patriarchs. After another interval again Ranor spoke. "Surely," he pleaded, "it will harm no one if you tell me, O! brother, what is the High Crime? Come! Am I not of the Nahneets? Have the patriarchs not so spoken? May you not, O! brother, in all propriety and without violation of the law, tell me what is the High Crime? Behold me — ignorant, miserable, abased — enlighten me!" Ranor could see that his appeal had its effect, and that the guard was favourably impressed. As with all of the Indians his mind worked slowly but with decision. He weighed the question carefully, and then spoke for the first time. " Know you not that the Crime of Crimes is the cutting of a sunnite? " the guard replied. Banor expressed an abnormal sense of relief. "What!" he exclaimed, and, forgetting that he was bound, started to rise, as if already his troubles were over. "Is that what I'm jugged for?" The ropes, however, held him, and he relaxed again to the stone bench, stiU a captive. In his excitement he had spoken in English and the guard, not understanding and seeing only what he interpreted as an effort to escape, in- stantly approached him and more carefully adjusted the ropes, assuring himself that they were indeed secure. He could not, however, rob Ranor of an overwhelming freedom from apprehension. "So that is it," Ranor rambled on, volubly, in his own tongue. "So that is what all this row is about. I thought it must be murder or treason, and it is only because I wanted to rub up one of the stones a bit. By cracky ! This is a joke ! " Seeing that the guard did not understand what he was saying, he paused, and then smiled iamiably, punctuating his good humour with repeated outbursts of laughter that were perhaps semi-hysterical, for he little realized what an at- mosphere of terror had been created in his own mind by the solemn, magisterial procedure of the previous hours. The 116 FRUIT OF THE DESERT guard evidently interpreted the laughter and the English words which, to him, were unintelligible, as being Ranor's confident assertion of innocence. This seemed to dehght him. He leaned forward, his face suddenly beaming with good nature, and asked enthusiastically in his native tongue, "Then the charge against my brother is false? He did not cut the sunnite?" "Of course I did," Ranor lightly continued. "If that is all they have on me, the case is simple. I'll not deny that and a rather pretty little gem it makes, too. Why " A look of consternation, to be followed by one of horror, appeared on the classic countenance of the Indian who in- stantly resumed his most rigid pose. Ranor could not again induce him to speak, and not once more throughout the night could he get from the dark eyes which forbiddingly gazed upon him another sympathetic glance. The Indian stood until dawn as if carved in stone, and only an occasional flicker of his eyelashes revealed that he was alive and awake. Shortly Ranor, much bewildered and very tired from the series of emotional crises through which he had passed, dozed o£F to sleep. It was full daylight when he was awa,kened by the guard who unbound him and who, without a word, signed to him to follow. They passed out of the coimcil chamber and up the village street to the tableland, at the edge of which they were met by the patriarchs. Ranor was led directly to the temple. Shortly he found himself facing the altar around which the old men were grouped, and at the head of Miiiich stood Izara. A little to one side stood Bopu. The stalls of the amphitheatre were bare, for this was evidently to be a star chamber proceeding with the only ones present, the High Priestess, the patriarchs, the accuser, and the accused. The sight of Izara refreshed Ranor wonderfully. Un- consciously he strained forward as though to come closer to her but a tug at the rope which bound his wrists reminded THE DEATH SENTENCE 117 him that he was still a captive. He looked anxiously and in vain for a glance from her, but she seemed to be quite un- conscious of his presence. As soon as all were assembled the heads were bowed in unison, while Izara lifted up her arms toward the heavens and uttered a short invocation to the Sun to bless the proceedings and to endow the Nahneet council with supreme wisdom. Ranor, who had bowed his head with the others, looked up when she had finished but she had already turned away. She disappeared rapidly, and soon he was alone with his accuser and his judges. Bopu and Ranor were brought face to face, separated by only a few feet, while in front of them, and grouped around the altar, stood the patriarchs. Ranor's hands were then unbound and the guards stepped aside, but only a few paces away. "Now then, Bopu," said the oldest patriarch, "are you prepared to prove thy accusation or to endure the seven-days', catechism of the sun? " "I am ready," answered the renegade, as he suddenly presented for the sight of aU the stmnite which Ranor had found in the glen and which he had cut and polished until from several facets there glowed a deep fire. Curiously the sun was heavily clouded, a rare occurrence for that climate at that time of year. This cloudiness alone prevented the gem from sending forth its most dazzling brilUance. How- ever, its cut surface, even though it lacked the blaze that a bright sun would have produced, was sufficient profoundly to affect all of the patriarchs. Each took one swift look at it and then averted his glance as though he had gazed upon a forbidden thing. Instantly the oldest patriarch seized it and wrapped it in his mantle. The others then turned slowly toward Ranor whom they regarded with revulsion and horror. "How came you by this, Bopu?" asked the oldest patri- arch. 118 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "For days," replied the renegade with a contemptuous leer, "I have seen the Lanu sneak far away in the thicket where in secret I have seen him mutilate the holy stone. This morning this guard and I took it from his home where he had hidden it." "Have you seen him with your own eyes?" queried one of the old men. "Aye, with my own eyes." Having said so much, Bopu stepped back a pace and averted his glance, as if no further interested in what might follow. The oldest patriarch turned to Ranor. " ! white brother," he called, yearningly, as though he hoped for a^denial, "you, to whom the Nahneets have opened their hearts, is this true or false?" Ranor quickly decided to make a virtue of necessity. He realized the futility of denial and he determined to throw himself upon the mercy of these righteous old men whom he felt could not be unduly harsh with him if he pleaded ig- norance and disclaimed any evil intent. Therefore, he addressed them directly, "It is true, O! wise men," he said. "I found this sunnite by chance in the glen of the 011a Dance. My cursed heathen curiosity has induced me to commit this grave fault and I am grieved more than I can say if I have caused any unhappiness among you, my brethren. If you are determined to punish me I must accept whatever you may allot as my portion, but mark ye well, O! wise men, I meant no harm and no disrespect to the laws or to the religion of the Nahneets. I have spoken." Ranor had adopted the Indian style of archaic address but he was not at all prepared for what followed. > The patriarchs became, if that were possible, more stern, more forbidding. The oldest advanced a step and, in a sepulchral voice, said: "The law of the Nahneets comes to, them from the God, He is the Sun, eternal and everlasting. The law may not be changed by man. Our fathers observed it and their fathers before them even unto the most remote gene- THE DEATH SENTENCE 119 rations. In that law, O! brother, it is written, as in granite, that one who defiles a sunnite must be submitted by the tribe to the seven-days' catechism of the God Himself, during which none of the Nahneets may intervene. From this sentence the weak heart of man may not swerve." The oldest patriarch seemed to falter for an instant as though he regretted the severity of the sentence he was im- posing, and he looked about from one to the other of his associates for encouragement and counsel. Without excep- tion they nodded gravely to him, giving an affirmative to his unspoken query. Turning to Ranor the chief concluded: "0! brother, sad is the plight of the transgressor of the law. He, himself, must pay the penalty, and not a brother nor a father may pay it for him. The God's deepest anger has always been reserved for one who presumes to defile any of His sunnites. These are the ripened fruit of the God's ancient marriage with the moon which He Himself long ages ago petrified and poured in the bosom of the earth, thence to be removed only for the decora- tion of those who serve Him most truly. By applying force and cunning to tear open the Sun's most precious gift to man, you have broken His first law. Therefore, it is my duty, as the oldest of the wise ones of the Nahneets, to resign you to the catechism and the justice of the God! I commend you to his mercy. Henceforth, you have passed beyond the reach of man. The council has spoken." Promptly the two guards advanced and seized Ranor by the arms, while Bopu turned, with a defiant toss of his head, to walk away. If Ranor had even yet reaUzed what he faced he might not have had the strength to make the plea which he now uttered. However, he did, by a determined stand, manage to hold the departing patriarchs while he spoke to them humbly. "O! wise men," said he, "I make no complaint against the law. I ask only this: If Bopu goes free without punish- ment for the crime for which he alone is guilty, I implore you, 120 FRUIT OF THE DESERT as one who has left the reahn of men, be you merciful to that innocent victim, that fair maiden on whom has been visited the wrath of the tribe." The patriarchs looked at Ranor in astonishment, appar- ently bewildered at his audacity, but he was quick to see that he had uttered a thought which was new to them and he did not hesitate to press home the advantage which he felt he had gained. "O! wise men," he pleaded, with eager unction, "I know not what you may have in store for me but if it be suffering ever so intense, remember I endure it patiently in the hope that you will pardon fully this innocent maiden. Is there nothing in the law of the Nahneets that will permit this to be done? O! wise men, be merciful, I implore you." The oldest patriarch gathered the others around him while he signed to the guards to hold Ranor. After a few moments of consultation the aged man returned, and said: "Be composed, O! brother, the law of the Nahneets is that one condemned for the defilement of a sunnite may make one last wish which it becomes the sacred duty of the tribe to observe. Think well and long as to what thy last wish may be." The phrase "last wish" as expressed by the patriarch possessed a ring of fatality which startled Ranor, but he did not hesitate. "Whether I have one wish or a hundred, it is this, O! wise men," he cried. "Make free the maiden. Re- store her to all her rights in the tribe. This much I owe her, for I feel that I was the unwitting cause of her detection. Bid her grow strong and pure, for I know that she will be a worthy mother of the Nahneets." When he had finished the guards marched him off through the entrance to the amphitheatre. He was taken, by a cir- cuitous route, which before he had not discovered, to the passageway which led to the prison cave. He was not un- duly depressed, although he rather wryly contemplated living for any length of time in the prison cave, for he was THE DEATH SENTENCE 121 buoyed with the thought that every morning henceforth Izara must come where he could see and talk to her. However, Ranor was not placed in the cave. When the guard reached the pavement in front of it they tilmed to the side opposite, where three stout oak bars were removed from a far different prison. Into this he was thrust. The bars were then replaced and the guards withdrew, leaving Banor alone. He looked around. He was in a circular room cut from the solid rock and not more than fifteen feet in diameter. The walls were ten or twelve feet high, perfectly smooth so that it was impossible for any one to climb up them. And there was no roof. The lack of a roof puzzled Ranor, as this rendered it impossible for one to find shade during the larger part of the day. The floor was as smooth as marble and almost as hard, being made of powdered limestone closely pounded. He passed to the front of this cell or well and found that the prisoners in the cave, only forty or fifty feet away, were all pressing their eager, curious faces between the bars. In the centre loomed the gaunt, stubbled counte- nance of the desperado. "Hello, pardner," called Slim Darrow, "how do ye hke th' coop.?" "I'm in a private ward," Ranor replied, with a laugh, "I'm a political prisoner, not a criminal." "I get ye, bo," Darrow shouted, "but ye have another think comin'. I told ye these redskins were th' champeen torturers of th* world." Despite a ghastly premonition which seized him, Ranor answered jauntily: "I am not afraid." "Why, they've sentenced ye to death, ye poor simp," Darrow called, not without a suggestion of rough sympathy, "they'll fry th' fat off yer bones an' roast th' gizzard out'n ye on that griddle. They don't kill anybody — eh? Wait till ye get through the sun test! If ye got any mind left it'll be changed." CHAPTER XVI The Rescue IT WAS midsummer and Ranor had been placed behind the bars a little before noon. The clouds, which earlier in the day had prevented the patriarchs from getting the full effect of the cut stone, were now gone and the sun was pouring down as if with renewed energy after a slight rest. Ranor examined his prison more carefully. His first im- pression on being thrust there had not been unpleasant be- cause he instantly realized that he was not to be kept away from the light, but now he saw that he would have altogether more of it than he desired. The ordinary malefactors of the Nahneets were condemned to a life-long imprisonment in a cave where the sun never penetrated, but evidently one who committed the High Crime was to have all the avail- able sun. Slowly the stark reality of the idea dawned upon him. Was he indeed to be "fried" on the "death griddle," as Darrow had said? When the thought first struck him with full force he was inspired with such desperation that he dashed full tilt across his cell, leaping as high as he could in an effort to reach the top. He missed by at least a foot. He measured his distance more carefully and summoned all his strength for one prodigious spring into which he threw him- self with intense energy. It was useless. Leap as high as he might, his fingers reached no nearer than six or eight inches from the top of the solid rock. As he fell exhausted on to the floor of the cell, he reached list * THE RESCUE 123 forth to examine with his hands the character of the walls for he had slipped down them with miusual celerity. They had given his bare feet absolutely no hold despite the fact that they were inclined on a slight angle inward. Now he discovered the secret of this. A thin coating of the skum' from a petrol bed had been smeared over the rock which no-' where presented any irregularity that might give a chance for a hold. However, on one side, rising four or five feet above the rim, was a sharp jutting crag of black lava. If he could only reach that he could easily pull himself out, but this appeared impossible. All in all, the cell closely resembled a deep skillet, the lava! crag forming the handle and the oiled rock with the limestone' bottom forming a monstrous utensil for broiling or bastingj under the unrelieved glare of the midsummer sun. , Exhausted and beginning to be truly alarmed Ranor stretched himself on his stomach, pillowed his head on his arms and tried to sleep. In a very short while the heat seemed quite intolerable. He reflected how curious it was that he had; not before been affected by the sun while living among the' Indians. They never exposed themselves to its full rays through the middle of the day. In fact, they always sought shelter from ten in the forenoon until three in the afternoon, dozing under the cool of the slate roofs of the stone houses,! where the open doors and windows admitted every breeze.' In this open rocky well he now felt a greater discomfort from the heat than had afflicted him during his early days in the desert when he first had called upon the sun to combat the disease which long since had been driven from his body. As the day wore on Ranor repeatedly blessed that experi-' ence in the desert. The hardening process through which he had gone voluntarily, whereby he had inured himself to, the full and continued heat of the sun, was now to stand him, in good stead. He remembered the story of Ben Hur,.-and how the charioteer at the supreme moment of the race 124 FRUIT OF THE DESERT called to win for him the muscles which he had hardened while chained as a galley-slave. For such an exposure as he was now to undergo, Ranor was perhaps better fitted than even the hardy Indians who, although Uving an outdoor life from their earhest years, had been accustomed to seeking shelter from the sun always dm-ing the most trying hours of each day. How long was it to last? Something had been said in the temple about a seven-days' "catechism." Ranor felt no great alarm at such a prosi)ect, although as the afternoon wore on it seemed that it would be impossible to wait for the next morniag for food. He had eaten nothing since the day before and now he was hungry indeed. Much as he wished to see Izara, his thought of her was now intimately allied with a longing for the maize cakes which he was sure she would bring at the coming dawn. By evening Ranor was feverish. Soon he realized this was due to the sunburn. Having no ointment such as he had used in the desert his skin had been unmercifully blistered and was beginning to swell in many places while all over it felt as though touched with flame. He rubbed himself against the oiled rock. This afforded a slender reUef so that with the night he was able to sleep. Once he rolled over on his side unconsciously, and awoke with a start, imagining that some- one had seared his flesh with a red-hot iron, but he only had brought the bUsters in sudden contact with the hard lime- stone. Long before dawn he stationed himself anxiously before the bars. The night was cool and wonderfully soft and still, which all but atoned for the unholy terror of the day. With a drink of water Ranor felt he could endure his captivity in easy philosophy, but now he had been more than twenty- four hours without food or drink and he was beginning to realize, with sharp distinctness, what the desperado meant when he spoke of torture. The end of the first day of any fast is a critical period, more THE RESCUE 125 so than the end of the first week, after the body has become inured to abstinence. But when there is added to that a day of broiling in the unshaded heat, then it seems as if the body has a miUion tongues and as if each is parched and swollen and agonizing. At the first sight of dawn Ranor's heart lifted as with a glad cry, and for a moment he forgot his sufferings, for he saw approaching up the passageway the sylph-like figure of Izara. He said nothing, but his eyes eagerly pierced the budding light and it seemed as though the mere sight of her had assuaged his thirst and reheved his hunger, though he did not fail to note the maize cakes which she carried. Izara did not look in the direction of the open cell but, proceeding in her usual way, fed the other prisoners, turned on the steam and turned it off, flushed the cave from the con- duit, turned off the water and then, without a word, de- parted. As she turned her back to leave Ranor was only a few paces away. "I'm starving, Izara, have you nothing for me?" he cried. For an instant she hesitated, started to turn back toward him but then, evidently conquering this natural impulse, she moved rapidly down the passageway and soon was out of sight. The blow was more than he could bear. Ranor sank to the floor, his head falling against the bars and, it may be that for the moment, he swooned. At any rate, when he heard a voice addressing him it seemed to be coming from another world. Gradually he roused himself as a raspy growl penetrated his consciousness: "Buck up, kid, an' hold out yer mit. Mebbe I can sUng ye a bite." It was Slim Darrow, who, from the bars across the way, was reaching out a long arm at the end of which in his powerful fist was clutched a maize cake. "Look up, now," he cautioned, "an' get off th' plate while I put 'er across fer a strike." Ranor stepped aside as the cake shot through the bars. He pounced upon it with famished eagerness, and he smiled 126 FRUIT OF THE DESERT to himself as he reflected that he was acting like an animal in a cage. He devoured the cake ravenously while looking across toward the desperado. "Sorry there ain't no more," Darrow called, "three o' them's s'posed to be a day's rations, but that's just enough to keep a feller from starvin'. 'Tain't never yet kep' me from bein' hungry." "Thanks," said Ranor. "It is more than I expected." "Don't mention it. Ye saved me out in th' desert. Here's my chanct to get even. Hev ye lam't how yer ticket reads? " "If they don't give me anything to eat I'll not last long here," Ranor replied. "Yer due thar seven days, starvin' an' bakin' an' then they've got a little high jinx planned fer ye. These pals o' mine hev been tryin' to tell me about it but I don't quite get 'em. Seems like yer finish is goin' to be a cross between bumin' at th' stake an' crucifixion." Ranor's tongue was so swollen that he could hardly speak, and at last despair truly had come upon him. "Water!" he moaned, for the maize cakes had served only to sharpen his thirst, if that were possible. Darrow was making some effort to solve this drink problem for he was tearing out the sleeve from his shirt. He had quickly seen that it would be impossible to get any of the water from the trough in the Indians' cave across the way, as Ranor's cell had been placed, evidently by design, at a higher elevation, which accounted for the fact that none of the water from the conduit had flowed into it earlier. Darrow, how- ever, soaked his shirt sleeve in the water trough. This he rolled into a sort of ball and, after a warning shout to Ranor, tossed it with a skilful aim across the coiu-tyard. It fell just outside Ranor's bars but fortimately so near that he could reach it. Without pausing to think of any of the problems of the desperado's laimdry, he sucked the shirt sleeve dry. He was still very thirsty, but the swelling of his tongue abated THE RESCUE 127 slightly. It seemed that his body was nowenduringthatlethar- gic second period of a fast in which the tissues apparently have been satisfied they are to receive no more nourishment from accustomed sources, and are reconciled to a temporary ejdstence of feeding on themselves. Dully and dumbly he stretched himself on the floor prepared to endure another day. He little doubted that he would survive for a week and if Izara had spoken to him, or if she only had looked at him with a sympathetic glance he felt that he coidd have steeled himself to meet the final mysterious test, ingeniously cruel though it might be. The second morning was a repetition of the first. Izara did not look at him, but fed her prisoners in her accustomed manner and departed; nor did he deign to make an outcry this time. He had devoted all of his thoughts to trying to understand her attitude. In looking for an excuse for her he had said to himself that although she was white she doubtless had no memory of any life except that with the Indians where, surrounded at all times with the religious atmosphere, looked up to as the most precious personality in the tribe, attended, courted, guarded, and secluded, she might well be sincerely devoted even to the crudest of the Indian supterstitions. All of this he well realized, but he also felt positive that he had received from her a response to the overpowering call that his youth had made to her youth, that his blood had made to her blood, that his sex had made to her sex. Now, for her so completely to ignore his desperate plight, for her to be so near and yet not give to him even so much as a look of sympathy — this was cruel, this burned into him more deeply than the rays of the sun. Why, even the outlaw had been touched by his plight, while the "divinity" whom he loved and adored ignored him. This second morning Darrow again shared his ration with Ranor who afterward threw the shirt sleeve back, whence it was returned wet. Then it was tossed and retossed again and again until Ranor had somewhat slaked his thirst. 128 FRUIT OF THE DESERT The third morning and the fourth morning the same thing happened. The burns were not now so severe, although most of the outside skin had peeled from his body. Despite Ranor's desire to be silent Darrow persisted in talking and his ramblings were interminable. He discussed many plans for escape but none of them seemed feasible. On the evening of the fifth day, in response to a question, Ranor described for Darrow the formation of his cell. When he told about the black lava crag which loomed above him like the handle of a skillet Darrow shouted with glee: "Yer saved, kid," he exclaimed. "What's th' matter with ye, ain't ye got no head? Take off yer shirt, tear it into strips, tie 'em together, throw 'em around th' rock, an' hist yerself out." Ranor did as he was bid but he found that he would require a rope fully thirty feet in length while the one that he was able to improvise was hardly a third of that. Darrow anx- iously awaited the result of his effort. When Ranor communi- cated it to him the desperado removed his clothing and threw it over to the opposite cell. "See if they'U piece it," he called, "an' if ye climb out come an' give me a hand. I can run from these varmints naked better'n I can with shirt an' pants." With new hope came new life. Ranor tore the garments into narrow but firm strips, knotted them together, and just before the sim went down, while the hght was stiU good, after repeated trials, managed to toss the loop of a doubled rope around the jutting crag of black lava. Then he waited until it was dark when he began to pull himself up the side of the sUppery rock against which he braced his feet in vain. How- ever, the rope made him independent of the rock as he climbed up and over. If the distance were far he might have lacked the strength. As it was, in a very few minutes he lay gasping on the rim of the cell. Finally, he stood looking down across the top of the passageway toward the copse in which lay Izara's palace. THE RESCUE 129 His first impulse was to go directly to the prison cave and attempt the release of Darrow, but before he did this he re- flected for a moment. If he should succeed in releasing Darrow, the desperado would insist on immediate flight to- ward the white man's country, and how could he go with- out one last word with Izara? Halted by this dilemma, Ranor, before solving it, pulled up the rope, and pieced together, after a very ragged fashion, his much-torn shirt, which he donned. Then he sought the river. There in the grateful waters he bathed and drank un- til, fearful of over indulgence in his weakened condition, he fled. However, he did not go toward the prison cave, but toward the copse whence Izara must pass on her early morning journey. CHAPTER XVII IZARA InTEKVENEB JUST before dawn of the sixth day of the "catechism" Izara, hastening along the path to the prison, was intercepted by the ragged, gaunt, and wretched Ranor. She recoiled as from an apparition, stifling a cry of alarm which automatically rose in her throat. "Izara," he whispered, hoarsely, "my heart has been nearly broken because you do not speak to me." "How have you escaped?" "Never mind about that. I'm out and I'm going to stay out. Before midday I shall be far from this village. If I had any sense I would be miles away before now, but I could not leave without a last word with you. I must tell you that I'm coming back for you. I'm going out to my own people, the whites, to form a rescue party. They will return with me and will take you from these savage Nahneets. Izara, how could they have threatened you so that you would not speak to me once during this past terrible week? Could you give me not even a crumb of corn? " He spoke so rapidly, almost feverishly, that she found no chance to answer any of his questions until he had asked them all. It was so very dark that he could not see her face distinctly and yet he felt that she was both drawn to him and repelled from him. "I am braving the wrath of the God Himself," she said, finally, in a very low voice, "by not calling for help." "My life is in your hands," he answered, "do with it as you will. If I escape, it will be only to rescue you." 130 IZARA INTERVENES 131 'The High Priestess of the Nahneets may not listen- "What absurd folly!" he exclaimed, fiercely. "If you truly believe this nonsense there must be some way to shake it out of you. You are just a white girl and you must wake up to it, and you must know that I love you, that you are dearer to me than life. Of course I want to save myself but more than that I want to save you." Ranor realized that these words instantly changed the severity of her attitude. "But your last wish — ^the last wish of the condemned," she protested. By now a dim light was in the sky. He could distinguish her features more clearly. For the first time he saw her as a woman distracted and looking to him for fight and guidance. "What do you mean?" he asked. "Your last wish was to save the girl condenmed with Bopu. If you love her how can you love me ? " "Love her?" He recoiled from her as if she had revealed a hideous sore. "Is that it? You mean to say that you have not spoken to me because I asked the patriarchs to spare that piteous little creature? Is it for that you have let me starve? I begin to doubt that you are white. In- stead you have the cruelty of a red Indian. You are indeed the High Priestess of the Nahneets!" Inspired with a profound feeling of righteous anger he turned as if to leave her. Instantly she restrained him by touching him on the arm, while all her resistance seemed to melt. Again he looked into her countenance. It mirrored suffering and longing, bewilderment and fear. "Do not be hard on me," she protested, "it appears I am not a priestess, but only a weak, weak woman." The hauteur, the aloofness of the religious exaltie had completely disappeared, and she stood before him humbly, her head bowed. "Izara," he cried, and reached forth his arms. She nestled against his breast softly and with a happy sigh as if in com- plete resignation to the love which he had invoked. He 132 FRUIT OF THE DESERT kissed her hair, her forehead, her eyes. Then she struggled feebly in his arms. "Don't," she pleaded, so abjectly that he was compelled to respect her wish. "The Priestess who accepts love like other mortals becomes less than them. It is the law." With the revelation he only drew her closer. Previously he had often despaired when he thought of the complete hold the religion of the Nahneets had on her. Now, in a moment, the way to overcome this strange opposition appeared clear, and yet, as he looked into her countenance, overwrought with an intense suffering which he could but dimly understand, he knew that if he had indeed succeeded in causing in her the revolution of feeling he had desired, it was at a cost to her on which he had not reckoned. The integrity of her natiu-e would not permit her to be won easily from allegiance to the beliefs in which she had been reared. > "No more," said she, speaking as one in very grave trouble to a sympathetic friend, "may Izara be the High Priestess of the Nahneets. Never until this moment did I think it possible that I might be faithless to my vows. Before, when you told me that you loved me, I closed the door of my mind. I thought that all the tribe loved me and that I did not see you different from the rest. Thus I answered my own doubts and thus I convinced myself that it was not a mortal weakhess to think of you. When they told me that you had been condemned for cutting the sxmnite my heart became like the prison cave. I cried aloud to the God to show me some way to save you. Then they told me that your last wish, the one wish of the condemned which the law permits to be granted, had been to save that miserable girl. O! forgive me! I am in waters I know not of. Something has carried me far away as on a great flood." She paused to gain control of her emotion, and then continued: "Listen, O! white friend. Your last wish saved the Priestess. Izara became herself again. No longer did I IZARA INTERVENES 133 pray the God to show me a way to save you. A fierce glad- ness came into my heart that the laws of the Nahneets had triumphed. It seemed to me then fitting that you should pay the penalty for the High Crime. Therefore, for the past five days I have endured no pain, no anguish in performing my duty in strict accordance with the law. Each morning, as it is prescribed for the High Priestess to do, I have fed and cared for the prisoners, without so much as glancing at the chief prisoner of all. Thus should the Priestess observe the law. Thus, indeed, has Izara been faithful." She spoke not with pride but with humiliation, and in her glance as it fell upon him there was a pleading for under- standing. He knew that he had wrung a confession from her. Yet, he could not restrain the agony of resentment that welled through the memory of his five days of exposure and fasting in the rocky cell. "Jealousy!" he muttered. "What an insanity! How could it carry you so far?" Great tears were silently welling from Izara's eyes. "For- give me! Forgive me, O! friend of my soul, O! wonderful white man. I am indeed less than the dust beneath your feet. I am indeed less than any Indian maiden over whom I have been placed in authority by the God. Like a flash in these minutes, I see this, even as my commands come from on High, for you have shown me how terrible has been my mistake. Search deeply in your heart for a little mercy. I, Izara, your handmaiden, am prostrated." Swiftly she knelt and embraced his feet, her body racked with a paroxysm of sobbing. Gently he lifted her up again into his arms. "It is nothing," said he, softly, "let us forget everything that has passed. It was little, indeed, to endure, for have I not through it reached this ? ' ' He could say nothing more, being overcome with joy in finding that the one he loved had given him a response. The light was now dangerously strong. Indeed, the rim of the sun was about to show itself above the mountain tops. 134 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Izara, by this time, should have fed her prisoners and should be on her way back from the cave. "Come," said she, "we will be discovered. You must return. I must hasten." She regained the basket of maize cakes which she had deposited at the side of the path. She started upward. "Yes, let us make a run for it now," he replied. "We will leave the Nahneets flat, and get back where things are a little less difficult to imderstand." "It is impossible. We could never get away," she answered. "Every ravine, every road, every avenue is guarded and watched. The nets and the traps would be enough to catch us, but now, when there is a prisoner con- denmed of the High Crime, there are double guards sta- tioned in every direction. It would be the height of foUy to attempt to run away." "Well, I'm not going back into that frying pan," Ranor expostulated. As though she were fully accustomed to such situations, when doubtless it was the first time in all her life when she had ever met one, Izara became quickly an intriguante. "You must do as I say," she insisted, "I know the Nahneets. Return ! No one will know that you have been out. To-day I will seek the supreme council and will secure your release." "Another day of that, without any food, will kill me," he protested, suddenly realizing how really famished he was, having had for five days only a small portion of the very meagre ration served Slim Darrow. She passed him the basket of maize cakes, bidding him help himself. He ate ravenously and then stored away a few extra cakes in the ragged tatter of a belt which he had im- provised from the rope of clothing with which he had effected his escape. Then, taking Izara once more in his arms, he bade her a hasty farewell and ran on ahead. However, instead of going directly to the prison, he first sought the river in which he KARA INTERVENES 135 again aoaked his sunburned body and drank his fill. Finally, he returned along the top of the passageway to the rim of the open cells. Fortunately, the prisoners could not see him. He di-opped lightly down the rocky wall, and again found himself on the limestone griddle as the red ball of the sim came up. Izara took no more notice of him on this morning than she had on any of the others, but how dififerently now was he affected! His heart sang with exultation and he had no fear. All the world seemed right, and he began thinking of the many admirable virtues of these wonderful Indians. He quite forgave them for inflicting this strange punishment on one who had unwittingly transgressed one of their queer laws. Were not many of their customs fundamentally wise and noble? However, he did not show himself at the front of the cell, for he had no desire to meet the questions of Slim Darrow. Word was received by the patriarchs that the High Priest- ess had summoned them to a meeting in the council chamber at the most solemn hour of the day, that just preceding sun- down. This was the hour in which the Nahneets held their most weighty deliberations and made their most important decisions. Interest was agog throughout the village at the unprecedented summons and all were in a condition of ex- citement in anticipation of the morrow, which would be the seventh day after the condemnation of Ranor and on which would occur the concluding ceremony of his sim test. The old men were waiting for Izara as she came in and re- ceived her with their accustomed deference. She was ac- companied by two of the squaws who formed her guard, but they did not enter the chamber. Instead, they squatted at the entrance where they remained, sphinx-like, throughout the conference. No one dared approach within a dozen paces of them, for their lynx eyes unerringly spotted in* 136 FRUIT OF THE DESERT truders and their sharp tongues drove them back with gut- tural imprecations. "O! wise men of the Nahneets," said Izara, as she stood at one end of the long room addressing them, "I have asked you to meet with me to consider a matter of the high- est importance to the tribe, a matter that touches the honour of the Nahneets. Are your ears prepared to listen.'* " "We are all ears, O! pious Priestess!" replied the oldest of the patriarchs. "Ever since the white man who is the guest of the tribe was condemned for committing the High Crime, I have been troubled in my soul for fear lest the Nahneets might become guilty of that which might displease the God." The patriarchs looked from one to the other in quick appre- hension. Intelligent, and with apparently fair dealing prac- tices, they yet were, in all that touched their religion, most superstitious. They infallibly believed in the omnipotence of the Sun as a god and they no more doubted that his word to men was conveyed through the High Priestess than they doubted their own existences. "Continue, Izara, O! beloved," the oldest patriarch re- plied. "Know ye, then, O! wise men," she went on, "that in the night word has come to me through those secret avenues of the air of which the High Priestess alone is aware, that the Nahneets must not imperil the life of the White Stranger who has come to them as a friendly guest." She paused, while again the startled look passed from one to the other of the patriarchs. Seeing her advantage she continued: "Already he has been tested severely by the God in the rocky place prepared, under His direction, for that purpose. Another day will be sufficient. Let him not be subjected to the final test upon the altar. Such is the mes- sage the God bids me. His High Priestess, to convey unto you, O! wise men!" The patriarchs appeared stupefied with this new thought. IZARA INTERVENES 137 It was something beyond their comprehension. Apparently they did not doubt Izara, but they counselled among them- selves for a long period, debating over and over again, in their slow and cautious way, all phases of this new problem. Finally, the oldest of the patriarchs spoke. "High Priestess," said he, "the wise men are indeed troubled. In all the many generations, during which the Nah- neets have lived upon this land, no exception has ever been made in the punishment of one who commits the High Crime. That punishment is in obedience to the highest and least al- terable of our laws. Again and again and again, in countless instances, as our fathers and their fathers have told us through scores of generations, the God has demanded of one who commits the High Crime the last and final test. The Nahneets do not kill even one who commits the High Crime. The God, alone, may see fit to kill, but it has never been law- ful for the Nahneets to spare the guilty." Izara impatiently interrupted. "But, through me, your High Priestess, the God has spoken," she protested. "He has commanded that an exception be made of this white guest who bears you no iU will, who henceforth will not again make free with any of the precious sunnites and whose sole crime was conunitted through ignorance and not through malice." Again a long silence occurred among the patriarchs. Finally, the oldest delivered judgment. "The High Priestess may not be doubted," said he, "by any of the Nahneets, but the wise men, after due conference, have decided this: that her message from the God is of such great importance and runs so contrary to the experience of the many generations of wise men who have appeared in our tribe, that they ask her to secure from the God, Himself, a sign. If this white man is not to endure the final test, let the God say in a way immistakable, in a manner so open that even the mortal children of the Nahneets may know. Ask the God for a sign, O ! Izara ! The council has spoken." That concluded the episode. The old men bowed rever- 138 FRUIT OF THE DESERT ently while Izara, her heart heavy with dread, passed slowly out. The squaws, seeing her approach, cleared a way through which she went to her palace, her face clouded, her brows closely knit. "It is the Divinity," said the Indians to each other as she passed. "Izara dwells apart while the God speaks to her." CHAPTER XVIII A SuNNiTE Execution THROUGHOUT the night Izara prayed. For many hours she saw no escape from the terri- ble trap in which Ranor seemed caught securely. She never had participated in the supreme test of one con- victed of the High Crime. Indeed, in all her life no such momentous event had occurred. Only once in the memory of the oldest living, fully two generations before, had this, ceremony been enacted. However, Izara knew full well what it meant. Annually she had received instructions from the wise men, and an- nually rehearsals were held in the temple in anticipation of the possibility of such an event. She knew that only a miracle could spare the lite of one submitted to this test for often she had been told by the patriarchs that in all the record of the tribe extending back through many generations into the far mists of legendary times, no one ever had survived it. Reared in the faith of the Sunnites and now, in this serious- moment, driven to the only consolation she knew, that of the sun worship, she threw herself ecstatically into a fervour of prayer, perhaps all unconscious that her mundane intelli-^ gence was alert and eager. Yet, morning dawned and Izara had not received her an- swer. As the ritual prescribed, on this day she was not per- mitted to go near the prison cave. Through this day the prisoners must fast. Beginning with the early morning^ the squaws who attended her engaged in preparation for the fearful ceremony. 139 140 FRUIT OF THE DESERT First, Izara underwent a prolonged steaming in the bath house, followed by a gentle but protracted massage under the hands of the most skilful of her women. Then her body was annointed with the elixir. Her limbs were now sub- jected to a long process of polishing with coarse-grained corn flour. This had the effect of whitening her skin, although her torso remained imtouched, so that, eventually, she pre- sented the odd effect of a brown body with snow-white arms and legs. After this a paste, formed of sassafras root and ochre, was used in the polishing of her fingers and toes until her nails shone like burnished copper. Her hair, treated with a pomade composed of yucca marrow and petrol gum, and scented with peppermint, was coiled into high curls which rose above her forehead like the horns of a ram. The lower portions of her eyebrows were touched out with white lead and a continuation were painted with a charred ember so that they appeared to lift obliquely. Finally, with mineral vermilion taken from the walls of the canon, brilliant little spots the size of the end of her finger were touched on the lobes of her ears, on the cleft of her chin, on the centre of her forehead, in the middle of her kneecaps, and in the centre of her elbows. The birch-bark sandals were carefully bound upon her feet. Except for these and the regalia of sunnites which she donned at the last moment, her sole clothing consisted of a moocha cloth bound around her loins. Before the forenoon was well advanced, one of the old squaws brought from its hiding place the regalia of sunnites. These formed a weighty harness, fuUy twice as many as she wore at any other time. First, there was an elaborate girdle fastened above her waist and extending down almost to her knees, formed of graduated strings of sunnites. Above this a crescent-shaped stomacher was held in place by ropes of stones which passed over her shoulders. These were the stars. Suspended in the centre of her back was a circle of the sasae piecious objects formed to represent the moon. A SUNNITE EXECUTION 141 There remained to be placed only the biggest of the stones, the one she had lost in the glen, which, just as she was about to start for the temple, the oldest squaw brought to her and, as she knelt, suspended around her neck until it lay as a pendant between her breasts. This was the sun. As the squaw placed it her face was averted and she, at all times, was careful to keep the surface which Ranor had desecrated downward so that it might not be seen by any human eye. Izara, likewise, had for this stone the same superstitious dread and she kept her eyes averted. As it was hung over her neck she carefuUy placeid its polished side toward her body and covered the stone with her hand. The time had come for her to start for the temple but she went to the roof of her palace for one final minute alone. As she climbed the steps carefully so as not to disarrange her coiflEure or to disturb her regalia, the exertion caused her to breathe heavily and she took a mis-step. In regaining her balance the largest sunnite was overturned. The rays of the sun flashed into it and then into her eyes. With a cry of dismay she placed the dull side up again, but as she did so she uplifted her face in thanksgiving to the Sun. For the first time since the dreadful pronouncement of the patriarchs the evening before, she felt her prayers had been answered. Swiftly she concealed in her girdle a tiny olla filled with the elixir and then descended to join the guard assembled to convey her to the temple. Meanwhile, Ranor had spent the night in a much-needed and a restful sleep. Unenlightened as to what the test of the morrow would be, he had no apprehension. Peaceful at last in the joy of Izara's confession, he felt confident that it was a matter of but a short time before they would be united. Shortly after dawn he was awakened by the protesting howls of the prisoners across the way. Their accustomed hour of feeding and watering had come and gone, while no one had attended them. Ranor paid no attention to this, but se- 142 FRUIT OF THE DESERT creted himself in the far part of his cell, although he also was waiting for some sign that Izara had not forgotten him. About ten in the forenoon his anxiety was relieved. Four of the most stalwart Indians appeared, removed the bars from his cell, and motioned for him to step forth into the passageway. He promptly obeyed and marched down in their midst. As he appeared, the desperado, peering from the bars of the opposite cell, cried out: "Bless my cats, if there ain't th' kid ! I thought ye'd made yer getaway, an' I'd been cussin' ye fer passin' me up, but ye only fainted with hunger." Ranor made no reply while Darrow called after him in a mournful and extremely sympathetic tone as he disap- peared in the midst of the guards: "God help ye, lad! Them redskins are hellions fer fair. If I only had a six shooter, I'd put a few o' them out'n th' way before they finish ye." Ranor, in the midst of his guards, passed quickly around the edge of the village and up the road to the temple. He had expected to be led to the council chamber and only when he saw that this was not to be done did he become ap- prehensive. They led him within the amphitheatre and down through the rows of patriarchs who stood on either side of the altar. He could see that every member of the tribe had assembled in the stalls. Swiftly his eyes passed from one to the other, without finding a friendly glance. Everywhere there was suspicion, duU hatred, and fanatic contempt. Ranor saw Tuwah in one of the nearest stalls. Instinc- tively he turned toward the old friend who had saved him in the desert but the countenance of the Indian was as stem as though carved in granite. Only for a brief instant did he get the slightest evidence of friendship, and this passed to him as in a lightning glance from a maiden in one of the upper tiers. He directed his vision toward her and saw that her hair was shorn close to her head. A SUNNITE EXECUTION 1*B It was she who had been the unwitting cause of this catastrophe. No one had told him what he yet must endure but an atmosphere of dread forebocUng smote him. The assemblage was held in a pall-like silence, and he began to fear, considering all that had gone before, and all that had been said, vaguely, it is true, and yet awesomely, that he must prepare to resign all hope. Then despair seized Ranor for there was no sign of Izara. Where was she? It had taken some time to traverse the distance between the prison and the temple and it now appeared to be about an hour before noon. Without further ceremony he was seized by the guards, placed on the marble slab which formed the top of the altar and there bound securely. Many thongs were passed around his limbs and in turn tied to the porphyry supports. Now appeared, one after the other, in rapid succession, the oldest virgins of the tribe, the girls who were beiag pre- pared for that year's OUa Dance, evidently selected by the Indians as their purest spirits, and yet with what ghastly business were they entrusted! Each carried a bundle of dried twigs and fagots so brittle from long exposure in the sun that they broke at the slightest touch. The patriarchs took these bundles and packed them aroimd and over and under Ranor's body, leaving only his head ex- posed so that he could see and hear all that was going on. 'At last he realized that he was unalterably bound upon a veritable funeral pyre. And yet, if the Indians did not kill, what menace could there be in this? He was not now to be long in doubt. Presently the oldest patriarch took from the hands of a confrere a stone cylinder not more than two inches in height and with a quarter- inch bore. Its imder side had a deft niche. The patriarch placed the cylinder on the top of the altar a few inches from Ranor's shoulder. Another was placed in the same relation to the opposite shoulder. Finally, in the central hole and 144 FRUIT OF THE DESERT through the niche of each cylinder, was passed a handful of what appeared to be dry dirt, but an odour assailed Ranor's nostrils with a sickening sweetness. He recognized it as the mixttu* of saltpetre, powdered resin, and dry punk which the Indians used in lighting their sacrificial fires. It was a crude form of explosive, instantaneously inflammable as gun- powder. The patriarchs carefully removed this powder from the top half of each cylinder, leaving the bottom and the niche filled, though it was easily apparent that, if lighted, the fire would spread instantly to the twigs and fagots which surrounded the victim. Then, across the mouth of each cylinder, they placed a conical ball of rock crystal, which, it appeared, would act as a magnifying glass in concentrating the sun's rays. The sun, still a little distant from the direct meridian, shot oblique rays across the mouth of each cylinder, leaving the powder in the shadow, but each minute that passed the shadow grew less and less, and the powder came nearer and nearer to the vertical glare of the noonday orb. The fuU force of this diabolical ingenuity came now to Ranor and he saw the complete design of the trial which awaited him. He remembered the archaic gun at Cairo which he had seen as a sophomore on his travels. The Egyp- tian gun is fired each day, automatically, at high noon, by the sun, whose rays, when they have reached the direct vertical, penetrate through a looking glass, which concentrates them into the touch-hole of the gun and ignites the powder lying at the bottom. As his mind comprehended how this Sunnite contrivance inevitably would result shortly in a similar ignition of the dried wood from whose flame he could not escape being burned to death, although no human hand would light the blaze, and the Indians could stiU boast that not they, but their God, had released the lever of the execution, Ranor mercifully swooned. A SUNNITE EXECUTION 145 His faint may have lasted but a portion of a minute, though it seemed for hours. Ranor came to consciousness through hearing the sepulchral voice of the oldest patriarch who, across his body, was. launching an oration to the tribe. "Ye men and women of the Nahneets," cried the patri- arch, "behold the test which the God has reserved for one guilty of the Crime of Crimes. Know ye, that from the be- ginning of time it has been held that one who defiles a sun- nite is more treacherous than one who steals, is more debased than one who betrays a maiden, is more wicked than one who kills a father. The dangerous beauty of all treasure concealed in the earth has been hidden from the eyes of man by the God Himself. Whoso looks upon this beauty is filled with vanity and envy, from which do proceed every form of weakness and decay! "Mark ye well what penalty is visited upon the children of men who lightly regard the most august law. "Many generations ago, the Pueblos seized from the hills the cruel white and yellow metal which causes the eyes of man to shrivel and his soul to die. This they bartered for exciting foods and strange raiments, but in it they were bartered, and became slaves of the white man, and now the Pueblos have disappeared from the earth! Only their houses remain. "Ages before, the Aztecs thought to defile the gifts of the God. They worked the white and yeUow metal, and cut and polished stones less beautiful than our sunnites into many strange forms, and for a period they waxed great and glorious upon the earth, but they, too, were destroyed. Vanity and pride, envy and cupidity, lust and sloth and the desire for wealth and ease led them to softness and decay. All lesser crimes were easily committed by those who first were guilty of the High Crime ! And because the High Crime went unpunished at length no other crime seemed less than a virtup. Death and destruction and annihilation followed for all the tribe! 146 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "Also the Toltecs! Also the Mahnzites! Also the children of the caves and the dwellers in the fair tents by the great waters! All, all have passed away because they disobeyed the God, vainly seeking to improve on the handi- work of His treasure. "Only the Nahneets remain. Only the Nahneets, obe- dient to the almighty law, who for coimtless generations have respected the holy stones, and who have never violated the earthly metals, continue in health to enjoy the blessings of the fields, the cleansing power of the waters, the protection of the hills, and the beauties of the heavens. Only the Nahneets, humble and trusting and worshipful, have existed through a score of centuries which have swept into oblivion so many foolish tribes. "Hear ye well the voice of your wise men, O! children of the Sun. Mark ye, O! Nahneets, what revenge the God takes upon one whose wicked courage leads him to defile the treasure buried in the earth! Never may the hand of man be raised against aught that lives, so prepare ye now to observe how the God avenges Himself on one who defies his sacred law!" The patriarch paused for a moment. There was intense silence. The sun was a little higher in the heavens. In another five minutes the rays would strike directly into the crystal lying athwart the bowls of the cylinders; the powder would flash into flame; and the pyre would blaze about the prostrate form of Ranor. "The High Priestess approaches," said the oldest patri- arch. " She will annoint the prisoner for the supreme test." Ranor, already deeply tortured with apprehension, had passed the period of despair, and, face to face with death, had achieved at last a resigned courage. He gazed calmly up into the face of Izara as she reached forth a cool hand and laid it on his fevered brow. "O! God of the Nahneets," she implored, so low that only he could hear, "do not fail me with Thy sign!" CHAPTER XIX The Keeper of the Gem RANOR shuddered as he saw the high ram's horn of Izara's coifiEure beetiing above her painted eye- brows and her vermiHon-tipped features. Her bar- baric decoration, with its dull clanging sunnites, made him wonder, for an instant, if she were only a final high hght in this picture of implacable savage doom. A quick glance around the amphitheatre accentuated this idea, for there stood the twelve patriarchs, Uke grim and remorseless executioners, looking upon him not in contempt and hatred as did the populace which filled the rising tiers beyond, but with a stoic calm, inhumanely as lacking in feeling as the granite cliffs which towered far above. Yet, even as he lay before them, the prostrate victim of a judi- cial murder from which they had so craftily absolved them- selves, he could not avoid realizing that for him, Ranor Gaul, the defenceless white man, they possessed neither hate nor pity, and that they would watch his life being snuffed out with as little perturbation as they would observe the extinction of a field mouse in the hot geyser. What could Izara do? Elate with poised confidence, her hand was as steady as that of a superb surgeon approaching a delicate major operation. Placing it upon his head she spoke in a monotonous voice as though repeating a conven- tional ritual whose meaning she did not understand. "No man may live or die for himself alone," said she, "all must five and die for the tribe, but only as the God directs. Death and life are alike faithful only if endured for the tribe. 147 148 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Your highest faith as a member of the Nahneets, O! white brother, is now to be tested by the God, Himself. Heace- forth, living or dead, you will be a true child of the Siin, a worthy brother of the Nahneets." Ranor hardly heard what she said. With each second that passed he wondered if it were not now high noon, when the rays of the sun would be exactly vertical and thus would swiftly kindle the spark that must then flash into the hollow cyUnders. The dead wood piled about him, light as it was, seemed now to weigh a ton. With all his strength he wrenched and squirmed^ against the stout hemp thongs which bound, him, but he was impotent. He could not turn a leg or an arm more than a fraction of an inch. The pile of fagots heaped above him like the mound upon a grave barely moved with his wrenchings and writhings, although the sweat poured from him. in every pore as though he were at the height of the steam bath, while the thongs cut into his flesh and his blood, mingled with his perspiration, began trickling in tiny rivulets slowly across the smooth marble top of the altar. If it had not been for that cool hand upon his brow he would have cried aloud in his agony. Izara, having finished with the exhortation prescribed by the ritual, leaned over him for a moment and from her eyes he gained a renewed courage while something there that she could not put in words bade him cease his struggles and confidently await the issue. Suddenly she stood erect, with a swift feUne movement which caused every sunnite on her person to crash against its fellow. In the deathly silence of the dread noonday this clanking of the High Priestess's harness sounded like the toc- sin of battle. Neither Ranor nor any of the Indians ever knew just how was accomplished the startUng wonder which now ensued, for her arms were uplifted and she never glanced downward. However, the lithe, unseen movement had overturned the great sunnite which lay between her breasts. The sun, a THE KEEPER OF THE GEM 149 very brief space from its highest place in the heavens, which were cenileanly innocent of even the fihniest drapery, seemed to concentrate all of its omnipotent power into the polished surface of the jewel which flashed and sparkled as with the dancing hght from a thousand mirrors. From each of the facets which Ranor had cut the molten light leajjcd with resilient force. As with divine authority, the sun seemed to say to the assembled multitude that from here, between the lovely breasts of this august virgin, the annointed intermediary from heaven, its commands were to be directed and its fire was to be launched. For the moment the lethal cylinders below were forgotten. What requires minutes for the telling required but seconds for the acting. Instantly upon the exposure of the polished sunnite and the myriad brilliant flashes which ensued from its surface, a startled cry of consternation swept the assemblage. This was led by a long, shuddering moan from the patriarchs, each of whom, without the slightest hesitation, averted his eyes, bowed his head, and turned his back. Consumed with mortal fear of the consequences which might result from looking upon the terrible beauty of the fabulous jewel, no member of the tribe dared do else than did their appointed leaders. Many threw themselves full length upon the floors of the stone stalls, shielding their eyes from the slightest flicker of the daylight. All, overwhelmed with the oration of the oldest patriarch, and completely dominated with the dread conception of the awful ceremony, were now the prey of superstitious fear. In that instant, without the loss of a second, though she cast her eyes rapidly over the assemblage to be sure that none was looking, Izara lifted from her girdle the concealed olla and poured forth upon each little powder train which led from the cylinder to the fagots a few drops of the elixir. Ranor saw what she was doing and his heart gave such a leap of relief that he felt that it must burst the thongs which 150 FRUIT OF THE DESERT his muscles had failed to loosen. Swiftly she leaned over for a closer examination of the powder trains and thus discov- ered the tiny rivulets of bloody sweat which were oozing from under his neck. With a deft sweep of her long fingers she diverted the paths of this liquor, distilled of his appre- hensive agony, until they mingled with the drops of eUxir and formed a harmless wet paste of the communicating powder trains. Much less than a minute had elapsed when again she stood erect as before. This time, however, the great sunnite lay with its polished side against her flesh and the dull surface uppermost. Again uplifting her arms as they had been when last the Indians looked upon her, she called forth: "Fear not, O! Nahneets. Look ye! The God is about to speak. He bids ye, through Izara, His High Priestess, look! Gaze upon His handiwork." The oldest patriarch was the first to dare trust the sight of his eyes upon the stone which had so dazzlingly affrighted them all. Indeed, it was again dull. Again it was as it had come from the earth, without the devilish artistry of the defiler. Reassuringly he nudged his neighbour who also looked. He nudged the next patriarchs and they the next. Those of the tribe in the nearer stalls at length dared uplift their eyes. Presently those who had prostrated themselves rose to their feet and again gazed upon the altar where still lay the bound victim. It was now the very minute, the very second of high noon. Never had the sim been more torrid with tropic heat. Never had its rays been concentrated with fiercer fire. It shone down with malignant joy and with over-mastering force as though it would blister and corrupt and bum all that might stand in its way. Then, in that imperceptible frac- tion of time, when the sun passes over into the afternoon, two parallel still flashes flared up from the top of the altar. Two pale spirals of thin smoke rose, ghost-like, into the heavy midsummer air. THE KEEPER OF THE GEM 151 A low moan, a vast sigh that came as from one throat, but in which all of the assemblage participated, ascended to heaven as the smoke spirals floated upward. Eyes were strained to the bursting to look upon the holocaust that all expected to proceed from the centre of the amphitheatre. For several very long minutes nothing happened. Abso- lute silence reigned. The fire for the moment had relieved the communal tension and presently a restless shuffling of feet, an indistinct murmur of low questions that passed from one to the other, filled the temple with a sense of be- wilderment, almost of fear. Why had not the brittle fag- ots, the dried twigs that would light with the veriest spark, burst into flame? What had prevented the expected in- cineration? Not a breath of air was stirring, for now the rest of the smoke had passed from the cylinders and was floating up as though suspended on a pltunb line, the spiral having long since uncurled itself until it resembled only a very thin and almost imperceptible straight string. One of the lesser of the patriarchs was the first to break the strange silence. "The God has spared him," he murmured in a very low tone. This was quickly taken up and passed from one to the other of the patriarchs. "The God has spared him," they said. "The God has spared him," echoed the members of the tribe. "A miracle!" said the oldest patriarch, who looked sto- ically and unmoved upon the still-alive and fast-reviving Ranor. Izara, standing by the head of the altar, closely observ- ing each rapid development in the scene, fidly aware of the primacy due her by virtue of her office, felt that now the time had come for the final coup. "O! wise men," she said, in a low voice so that none beyond the patriarchs could hear, "ye have asked for a sign that even the least of the Nahneets may understand. Has not the God now answered ye?" The glances which passed from one to the other of the 152 FRUIT OF THE DESERT old men were sufficient. It was apparent that all were satis- fied. "Ye have spoken as becomes the High Priestess, O! virgin of the Sun," replied their chief, "the sign is clear for the Nahneets to read. The God has tested the guilty one. The God has cleansed him in fire and has washed him clean of his mortal sin." "As ye have seen, O! wise men," continued Izara, "the God has acquitted the white stranger of the High Crime. Is it not also the evident wish of the God that the innocent should be freed.''" Again a few rapid looks exchanged among the patriarchs proved that they were of a single mind, and the oldest ad- dressed Ranor. "O! brother," said he, "the God has chosen you among all the men of the Nahneets to be His high favour- ite. Pure as a maiden in the 011a Dance, strong as a child after the water test, true as the heart of the Sun, you have been spared to the Nahneets! Welcome, 0! brother, to our hearts." Immediately two of the patriarchs scattered the dried fagots from the top of the altar and severed, with stone knives, the hemp thongs. Ranor, too weak to move, could only blissfully and slowly stretch his limbs, while, with ten- derest love and the greatest reverence, two of the patriarchs lifted him from the altar and held him as he stood, unstead- ily, exhausted and too bewildered for words. Izara now advanced, saying: "It is the will of the God that the white Nahneet shall be, henceforth, the keeper of the gem! As none but he could cut it and live, so none but he may keep or see it and remain strong." With this she removed the great sunnite from her breast and handed it to Ranor. CHAPTER XX Rentinciation THE patriarchs averted their heads to avoid every possibility of seeing the polished surface of the great stone. The members of the tribe did likewise. Meanwhile Ranor received it from the hands of Izara, wrap- ping it in a piece of torn cloth which he picked up from the earth at the side of the altar, and thrust it in his arm-pit where it was held concealed. Then he asked the oldest patriarch for a draft of the elixir. He was careful, however, to phrase the request rather as if it were a command, for he did not propose to cede either the extraordinary powers or the mysterious virtues with which all of the Indians now seemed willing to invest him. The elixir instantly revived him and shortly he was ready to walk alone. Without so much as a glance at Izara, with whom, he realized, his relations must appear to be utterly impersonal, he spoke to the oldest patriarch and asked that he be taken to his house. There was a hurried conference among the old men, following which he was escorted in solemn state by the entire twelve, not to his previous residence, but to a very large house which stood on the edge of the village a little apart from the others. He had known it as the dwelling always reserved for the oldest patriarch. "This," said the chief of the wise men, "shall be the home of the Keeper of the Gem." Ranor conquered his courteous impulse to refuse the hon- our and, instead, merely bowed graciously, as though ac- 153 154 FRUIT OF THE DESERT cepting what was only the just due of the prime favourite of the God. Presently two of the most skilful masseurs in the tribe arrived and his aching and exhausted body received the ministrations and the unguents which most deliciously began his restoration to complete strength. Then arrived the squaws bearing every manner of the finest Suimite food: the stripped yucca marrow fried in bean oil; the most finely powdered maize flour in the form of a huge pancake on which was spread wild strawberries; roasted chestnuts dipped in honey, and whortleberries floating in the clotted cream of goat's milk. As long as Ranor lived he always recalled this as the most delightful meal of his life. Toward the close of the afternoon he relaxed into the first good sleep he had had in a week and it was well into the forenoon of the following day before he awoke. Tuwah was at his side patiently waiting for his eyes to open. Near bj^ stood the stalwart masseurs with stone ewers of hot water. At a sign from Tuwah they approached and prepared Ranor for a matutinal ablution which he was to discover was expected to be a portion of Jiis daily regimen. A welcome portion it proved to be. The deft palms of the Indians tmcannily sought out for manipulation the most stimulating nerve centres. Soon he felt as fit as on the day six years before when he had won the intercollegiate half mile. For the moment Ranor forgot the great sunnite, and as the masseurs worked over him it became detached from its covering, and rolled from his arm-pit on to the floor. In- stantly the Indians prostrated themselves, averting their faces. "O! August brother," implored Tuwah, "spare thy friends from the evil eye." Ranor was impulsed to make a quick and jubilant response: "Don't worry, old scout, I'U not easily give up my key to the kingdom." Instead, noting the extreme deference, even RENUNCIATION 155 reverence, which dominated his ancient friend, he replied, in his most formal Sunnite: "No upright one among the Nah- neets may fear. I will protect all who obey the laws." Whereupon he recovered the gem and until he was again alone held it carefully concealed in his hand. When all had departed he sought a place in the rear of the house and scooped a hole in the earth. Into this he fitted some slabs of slate which he procured from a near-by roof. Thus he made a crude form of casket in which he deposited the polished gem. Then, over the slate covering he spread some earth and smoothed it all off level with the floor imtil no casual eye could detect the location of the receptacle. In going outside his house to secure the slate Ranor dis- covered, stationed at each comer, a stalwart Indian. In these four he recognized the most powerful men of the tribe. In the doorway of the nearest house sat Tuwah, silently and patiently watching his dwelling. The four who stood at the comers appeared to pay no attention to him but to guard all the avenues of approach. In Tuwah's glance he thought he detected only the dog-like fidelity of a solicitous friend, and whenever he encoimtered the eyes of any of the four he received the response of affectionate reverence. However, he promptly became imbued with a new cause for serious concern. No doubt these sinewy males were there to insure his freedom from any possible intrusion. But if their function was to guard him from unwelcome visitation from any member of the tribe would they not also as effect- ively prevent him having any communication that was not formal with Izara? This, while his whole thought was concerned with but one object — ^how to see her, how to thank her. Ranor resolved to be patient and extremely cautious. While at first he felt confident that he had probed the inner- most secrets of the Sunnite mysteries and was the recipient of their fullest confidence, as well as of their extreme respect, still there was an uncanny something in the very atmosphere 156 FRUIT OF THE DESERT which now and then oppressed him with foreboding. What surprises might they not still have in store for him? For several days he made no effort to vary the monotony of his quiet life. Meanwhile, he became more and more conscious of the irresistible forces of static power which these inscrutable Indians possessed in this obscure fastness. Was it a spiritual grandeur, or an intellectual isolation, or what? Savage as seemed some of their customs, judged by any of the civilized Caucasian standards that he knew, yet his alert youthful intelligence could not deny the effectiveness of the accumulated wisdom of countless generations of matured wise men which had prescribed for this little group of pacific human beings mysterious ways of protecting them- selves against every possibility of danger or destruction. The guards were uncanny. Ranor had no fear of thieves among the Indians for there was an equitable distribution of land and of all the products of the soil. The nature of the climate and the frugality of the people doubtless accoimted for their generous feelings regarding food and property. In- deed, they felt only mildly interested in material possessions, and an abject fear so palpably ruled all who came within sight of the polished stone that the possession of such a spoil would be to them an incubus. Yet there were the guards on constant and tireless watch. Could it be that they were not watching him? For a few days he made no effort to go beyond the accus- tomed path from the village to the bath house and the river. Whenever he left the house one of the guards accompanied him while the others held their posts. This division con- vinced him that it was the gem, not himself, which was being placed under surveillance. Therefore, he resolved on a bold move, and one morning in the hour before dawn he slipped out of his house. He had gone but a few steps when he was joined silently by one of the guards who trotted along with him. As soon as they were outside the village where they could not be overheard Ranor halted. RENUNCIATION 157 "Return and guard the gem, O! Brother," said he, "I go alone into the mountains to make obeisance to the God. I will return before noon." Unquestioningly the Indian obeyed and Ranor moved on rapidly. As soon as he felt that he was quite alone he al- tered his direction along the edge of the maize fields and shortly found himself in the copse in the rear of Izara's palace. Whatever apprehensions he may have felt he dismissed with the resolution that if they were discovered he would stoutly assert his authority and declare that he was only in a religious conference with the High Priestess. There was a late moon and the sky was very clear so that he could see distinctly for some distance. The salubrity of the atmosphere and the delicate pencilling of the Unden trees against the star-studded sky lent a poetic glamour to the coming dawn. His isolation was peopled with a romance which firmly enthralled him. Philadelphia and Boston, Los Angeles and Mom-ovia had no claim upon him now, and he marvelled when he realized how little he cared if to all who had known him he was doubtless as one dead. Rather, his only thought was how splendid, how enchanting was his life; what unsolved mysteries await to illumine one who boldly steps forth to enter them? Presently he was conscious of a slender, softly clothed figure approaching. "Izara," he called, intercepting and re- lieving her of her accustomed burden of the basket of maize cakes carried on her shoulder. She permitted him to place the basket in the path beside them but as he reached forth his hands to take hers she stepped back a pace. "O! Keeper of the Gem," said she, "where are your guards?" "Watching the gem," he replied. "Where else should they be? Don't fear. No one can see or hear us. We are alone." 158 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "Except for the God." Ranor laughed. "And He is not up yet." He quickly realized that his laughter would receive no response and that he was talking to the Sunnite High Priestess and not to the resourceful white girl who, by means of a shrewd trick, had saved his life from the superstitious Indians. After a long pause she answered, with the aloofness which was part of her charm : " The God is always present, by night as well as by day. It is by night that he speaks to me more clearly." "Was it by night," Ranor could not help replying, "that he showed you how to cut the connection between the breech and the bole of that infernal machine that was fixed to roast me the other day?" He was obliged to repeat his question slowly and in more careful Sunnite before she under- stood what he meant. Blandly she answered : " No, it was not until I arrived in the temple and saw you boimd on the altar that I received the final message for which I had been praying all the night before. It came to me at the very moment when I had de- spaired of receiving it." Despite himself Ranor experienced a curious awe. He had expected that Izara would now become a declared and open confederate. Instead, it dawned upon him that, in very truth, she believed, in her innermost heart, in this religion of which she was the chief devotee. "Tell me," he asked, very gently, "how may I let you know that I realize fully what you have done for me?" "I have done nothing. It is the God." "You have saved my life." "No, the God has spared your life." He seized her hand but she firmly withdrew it. "The God?" he exclaimed, fiercely. "Have you forgotten that morning in this very spot? Have you forgotten what I said to you then, that I lived only to save you? And that RENUNCIATION 159 you promised me that if I returned to the prison you would save me?" "My heart softened toward the white man not yet favoured by the God," she replied, calmly, looking at him with that impersonal stare which was maddening. "I felt it was necessary to spare him from his own folly that the God might have a chance to reveal to the Sunnites how un- worthy were their suspicions." Ranor felt baffled and suddenly farther away than ever from the object of his dreams. Had he endured all, even the peril of death, to arrive only at such an impasse? "I was sure," he protested, "that your heart answered mine." "It did," she continued, as she gazed steadily at him with a directness that was compelling in its sincerity, "but only as a priestess to an afflicted brother." The dawn was now apparent. The silver flecks on the dappled leaves of the lindens were interspersed with bars of violet and gold. He saw that she was impatient to be gone but he could not endure that she should leave him thus. He seized her in his arms, pressed her to his bosom, and made as if to kiss her. Apparently she did not resist, but only looked upon him steadily and with a gentle, silent reproof which was more effective than if she had struggled and raised her voice. His ardoiu: cooled, even as it was expressed. "But," he protested, "we cannot go on hke this. I love you with all my heart. What prevents you from loving me? I know, from the way you responded to me here the morn- ing I escaped and from the look in your eyes which I saw as you leaned over me when I was bound on the altar, that your heart answers the cry of mine. You must no longer hold a barrier between us. The Nahneets will accept whatever is commanded by their High Priestess. " He smiled consciously as he added with a peculiar little self -deprecatory grin, "And they have put the white stranger in the hierarchy, too, haven't they? Suppose I tell them that the Sun has com- manded that I shall wed the High Priestess?" 160 FRUIT OF THE DESERT She drew back with a dignity indeed regal. "No!" she exclaimed, affrighted, "that will never do. I have searched my heart in the stiU night and I have called upon the God to show me the way, to teach me the path that the leader of His people should know. And my answer is clear. It has come to me. I may know you, henceforth, only as one of the many, for I am the bride of the Sun." She lifted the basket from the grass and moved swiftly on up the path toward the cave. He stood watching her until she was out of sight and then slowly returned to his house, wondering how he could surmount this graver obstacle, im- palpable though stem. CHAPTER XXI The Venerable Oyster MONTHS passed. Harvest time arrived. From the bronzed fields were garnered the crops of yellow maize, and the ears of corn were stored, safe from the coming rains and the consequent mould, La great rock cisterns high above the bath house on the edge of the tableland. The long, red, meaty beans were similarly placed. There ensued a fortnight of herb hunting in the under- brush of the nearest mountain. The old squaws were ex- clusively employed in this as they seemed to have an unerring instinct for locating the desired sassafras, mint, elderberry root, ginseng stalk, bayleaves, thomberries, and hearts of ash runners which were the principal ingredients required for various piurposes, chiefly for cooking, but also for the un- guents and the pomatums used on ceremonial occasions. The most important purpose to which the herbs were put was the brewing of the mysterious elixir, that life-giving compound which more than once Ranor had discovered to be possessed of rare powers. No individual was allowed to brew this elixir for himself. The entire tribal supply was prepared in one pot by a little group of the oldest squaws. The process required ten days of boiling, straining, evaporat- ing, refining, and reboiling. The result was a sufiScient quantity of the white smooth liquor comfortably to fill several three-gallon ollas. These remained always under custody of the old squaws who doled out small portions from time to time, as they were prescribed or needed, but only imder the strict conventionality of ancient custom. As proof of his 161 162 FRUrr OF THE DESERT exalted position in the tribe Ranor was entrusted with a small oUa containing about a pint of the elixir which he was permitted to use at his discretion. This he secluded in his house carefully, reserving it for some unforeseen hazard of the future. _ Through all this period he made no effort to seek Izara. The weather continued day after day and week after week in the matchless, dreamy haze of late fall. He was being lulled into inaction through the sensuous delights of a verita- ble "Indian summer." Living as he now did in conditions of such respect and confidence with his red hosts he felt, at last, that he was indeed their "brother." Occasionally Ranor rebelled inwardly at the lethargy of his existence. At these times he said to himself that his life here was like falling into slavery in some far-off epoch and that he was being held by an inferior people. He reflected, in these rebeUious moments, that they were almost less than human, without ambition, without curiosity, utterly devoid of any desire to widen the horizon of their strangely curtailed existence, slumberously confined in an obscurity from which they neither hoped nor desired for release. At these times the reahzation that he was completely cut off from the vast and flashing panorama of civilization weighed heavily upon him and he resolved that he would make some mighty effort to escape. He was quite strong and capable of any endur- ance; why should he longer vegetate like a potato in a hill, or remain content to be locked up forever like a snail in its dim cavern? But when these thoughts came to him, when his spirit chafed and the memory of the exciting moments of his youth pressed upon him alluringly, he had only to look around him to experience something not unhke the spell of the fabled nepenthe. One glance at the trusting and benign counte- nance of the aged Tuwah or at the manly and calm faces of the virile braves who formed the guards of honour, or at the stolid forms of the industrious squaws, or at the THE VENERABLE OYSTER 163 flashing, innocuous suppleness of the naked children, brought him to a satisfying sense of the unique pleasure which he enjoyed, for the whole tribe accorded him an affection, an obedience, and a respect that were nothing less than dog-like. Then he would bring the metaphor of his thought to that noble animal, so often said to be the best friend of man, the dog. That was it. The Sunnites were super-dogs, with all of the canine tenacity of affectionate serviUty and uncritical response, and yet articulate. Ranor well knew that most of those who had participated in his former life would have said, if they could have known of his present companions, of their ancient histoiy in this one spot, of their mollusc-like content, of their bovine, static immutabiUty, that they were degenerate. And yet, what a libel it would be so to stigmatize them! He had not seen a case of sickness since he had come into the tribe. Of vicious habits he had seen nothing at all. Except for the stark defiance of the renegade Bopu and the unnamed depreda- tions of the denizens of the cave, crime was also curiously absent; or certainly had been reduced to its lowest minimum. The normal relations of the Sxmnites were conventionally moral, and the robust health of their bodies bore eloquent testimony to the careful regimen they observed. Thus, insensibly, week by week and month by month, Ranor became more and more enamoured of the Siuinite existence and less and less was he pinched with longings to return to the multiplex fascinations of his early life which seemed now only a very dim memory. Similar phenomena have frequently occiured in the lives of white men who, through one circumstance or another, have found themselves cast away to Uve with far-distant peoples. Stefansson testifies that, among the Esquimos, he often wished he had been born of them, or that he had never known his civilized origin, so alluring became their primitive customs. Scores of white men have disappeared in 164 FRUIT OF THE DESERT the interior of Africa, or of Central Asia, have lost their identity, have become merged in the life of various tribes whom we, in the vulgarity of our youth and strength, call savages. Say that this is "degeneracy," "reversion to type," or what you will, it has an overwhelming claim which no one may be sure he is strong enough to resist if circumstance should ever place him within its thrall. Ranor missed books, naturally. But, lacking the printed page, he came, like the Indians, to observe more closely every change in the sky and in the fields. In a short while he was an infallible weather prophet, able to tell from twenty- four to forty -eight hours in advance what the state of the atmosphere woidd be. He came to have a strong and pro- found affection for the little tableland, not more than two or three square miles in area, where nestled the village and where lay the fields from which was garnered the nourishment that kept alive this pacific people. The sensuous delight of the steam baths grew until to him the odd days when the women had possession of the bath house were as so many lost days. The steaming and the massaging and the bathing intensified the wholesome pleasure of living in the open air, while it filled him with an ineffable languor. Now his mind reverted to the store of knowledge with which he had been crammed intensively in his student days, and which he had learned, like all his fellows, by rote, without realizing its significance. A long-forgotten lecture in biology came back to him. He remembered an eminent scientist's assertion that the oyster is one of the most primitive manifes- tations of life upon the planet and that alone, of all the earlier manifestations, it has survived down through thou- sands of miUions of years, leading an apparently aimless and uncertain existence, devoid of the thrill of contest or the stimulation of change, and yet, thereby, retaining its original organism, surviving every manner of prehistoric fish and beast and fowl, while it has persisted, without change, through the entire evolution of man. THE VENERABLE OYSTER 165 In the presence, then, of this lowly mollusc, how highly ephemeral is all other organic form! Ranor reflected; as the integrity of the life form is the most precious thing known is not the oyster the wisest of all created organisms? Is it not the venerable patriarch, the original founder of the oldest of all dynasties, the creator of a pristine nobility extending on back through countless millions of generations? And, compared to the oyster, is not the scandalous monkey with his hectic descendants who are never satisfied, never at rest, with no sense of the value of life, merely a prodigal? In the presence of the patriarchal oyster, sole possessor of the secret of the preservation of the crown of existence, the life essence itself, is not man, reckless barterer and thief of the precious essence, merely a vulgar parvenu? And, in the realms of pure wisdom must not man remain forever obsequiously, hat in hand, at the lintel of the home of the sublime oyster whose unbroken dynastic line extends back beyond the troglodyte, beyond the dynosaur, far into the nebulous era itself? Pursuing this reflection logically it appeared to Ranor that as is the oyster to man biologically so were the Sunnites ethnologically to all 'other tribes and races. Others might flash brilliantly in conquest and achievement for a few gene- rations or centuries, only to pass the inevitable way of all who gratified desire or aroused envy. Yet, these lowly Indians, by the veiy meekness of their stoic austerity, per- sisted in unchallenged empire over the integrity of their life principle. "Degenerate?" Might they not rather be a shining light on the carapace of the future, beckoning to that welter of cross purposes babbling of a League of Nations, denying everything but Self, worshipping everything but Nature? Instead of the despised and forgotten past were they not the supernal now, tenoned in the basalt of the world's vertebrae like the mountains which sheltered them? Such reflections absorbed Ranor as he sat in the evenings observing his stolid red friends. Ruminating thus, his mind 166 FRUIT OP THE DESERT was opened to a new view of Izara. He had been constantly thwarted in his analysis of her since the morning she had so forcibly informed him that she was the bride of the Sun. Her feminine contrariety had quite baflBed him. Why should not a lone white girl accept the advances of the only white man she had ever known, one very near her own age, and especially since she had given such unmistak' able proofs of her very deep and sincere interest in him? The metaphor of the mollusc gave him his answer. Woman, he said to himself, is a creature to whom form and ceremony, all the artificial distinctions of caste created by man, are the very breath of the nostrils. And here in this lost tribe, mummified, as it were, did not social distinction have a lure for woman even as in the Court of St. James's? Only, in a very different, a more subtle way, and one far more compelling. For, in the passing aristocracy of St. James's, an essentially parvenu society with a mere few cen- turies of history as a background, woman might, and often did, dare upset the established order when inspired by love or ambition. For was there not always imminent conquest or revolution, either military or political or commercial? But here, among the Sunnites, the venerable oysters of man- kind, the high Brahmins of a civilization imdeniably more ancient than any now existing, nothing ever had disturbed the established order, and it was impossible to conceive that anything would disturb it. So she doubtless had been reared to believe; so she doubtless did believe. If an ordinary queen on an ordinary throne would hesitate to upset the traditions of her (comparatively) transitory royalty how much more firmly wedded to the immutable law of custom would be this queen, steadied by the heritage of a thousand generations? In former days, impulsed by the jerky and insouciant American life of which he was a typical product, Ranor, even if he had perceived these conditions, would doubtless have taken them very lightly. But, as it were, he had drunk THE VENERABLE OYSTER 167 deeply of the waters of Lethe. The spell of the Sunnites was upon him. Was not even their religion sound and true? Who, more than he, whose life had been made whole by the beneficent rays of the golden orb in the sky, had better reason truly to worship the sim? So he felt ever more and more the hopelessness of his passion for Izara, and he tried to still the longings for her that rose within him. For weeks at a time he was happy in the thought that, indeed, he had lapsed into the desuetude of the Indian va- cuity. So, at length, he resigned, as he fondly believed, all expectation of realizing what was, in fact, the basic desire of his soul. Occasionally, he woidd jibe himself, saying: "Forget it, young oyster! You are stuck tight to this old rock! What vain dreams you have of yourself as a healthy shark with your lovely mate cruising through the troubled waters of the world." CHAPTER XXII The Beab Skin AS THE autumn grew to a close and the weather be- /^ came more and more chill and the leaves of the woods -*- -^ changed into the riot of autumnal colouring Ranor looked again and again into the halo of haze that himg over the tops of the moimtains with a vague wonderment to know if he should ever pass beyond their confines. With the coming of the cooler weather a deep longing which it seemed impossible to stifle came upon him. It was a physical ache whose origin puzzled him, but at last he con- cluded it must be caused by his long abstinence from meat. These cravings had been periodical ever since he had fully regained his health, but they came now with increased force. For days at a time he had been quite content with the simple vegetable diet of the Indians, but now, without warning, he became the prey of a savage longing to sink his teeth into flesh once more. He was ashamed of himself as he observed the unwavering fidelity to vegetarianism of his red neighbours. Now, indeed, he felt beneath them. For, were they not upon a plane of superiority far above his instincts? He laughed to himself, saying: "You're not a natural-bom oyster — it has been wished on you." Ranor said nothing openly of this longing for meat. For a long time he himself was not aware of it, but when he did realize it he looked about with envious eyes to see if there were not some way in which he could surreptitiously satisfy his desire. It might be illicit, yet was he not the favourite of the God, and had not such favourites in all tribes and at 168 THE BEAR SKIN 169 all times been privileged to live, if not outside the law, at least above it? Such sophistry assailed him as he watched the pretty little cotton tails of the rabbits that scampiered unafraid across the mesas. How he would like to stew one and enjoy its tender shoulders! The sight of the partridges which entered so confidently into the trees above the bath house aroused in him the cruel thoughts of the hunter. The goats which the tribe kept for their milk on the lower mesas revived in his mind a query as to the quality of their flesh properly roasted. From time to time he had put to test the authority of his new position among the Indians. He had asked Tuwah and various ones of the patriarchs many questions concerning the history of the tribe. These they had answered with none of their former reserve. Once he had informed them that he wished to examine the sxmnite mine and without the slightest hesitation he was afforded every opportunity for doing so, nor were his actions placed under surveillance. It would have been easy for him to pick up any number of the stones but he refrained from this. In like manner he had pushed out down the ravines and the river bed past what he had previously known as the frontiers of the tribe's territory. One or more of the guards invariably accompanied him and showed him how to avoid the traps and the nets, while he in- spected them with an interest which he tried to make appear casual. Never was he hindered. Always he was helped. When he knew the location of each of the defences which guarded the frontiers he formed the habit of going alone past them into the outer country, each time as he went bidding his guards stay behind, ostensibly to watch his house and the precious jewel which it contained. So the Indians became accustomed to having him go away for a full day at a time alone into the hUls and valleys. One day in a tiny arroyo, several miles from the village in the outermost approach, he found a bear trapped. It was a brown cinnamon bear, perhaps of three or four hundred- 170 FRUIT OF THE DESERT weight, plump and sleek, in the prime of a prosperous berry and honey season. The Indians did not aim to kill with their traps, and they always released the captured beasts, but in this instance the bear, evidently sluggish with stored-up fat, had been too slow. A figure-four trap had finished bruin's career, the huge top log crushing in his skull as he had struggled to free himself. Ranor looked at the rippling brown haunches and his mouth watered as he thought of the nut-like taste of nicely roasted fresh bear meat. Like a skilful casuist he cross- examined himself. Had he been in the least responsible for the death of the bear? No. Had he taken any vow of ab- stinence from the eating of flesh? No. If he took advan- tage of the meal thus providentially placed in his way would he be violating any word that he had given? No. What harm would it do if he should enjoy a few steaks from those rotund flanks? Palpably none to himself and none to the Indians unless he were found out. He examined the carcass. It was still warm, evidently trapped that very day. He returned to wrestle with his temptation, knowing that from the beginning he was lost. Early the next morning he concealed in his belt a stone hatdiet and a flint and punk. Then, assuring his guards that he was off for another day of solitary exploration, he again sought the distant pit. In a very short while the bear was skinned, a fire was built, and Mr. Bruin was soon roast- ing on some hickoiy logs. To occupy himself while the meat was properly cooking, Ranor tacked the bear's skin on the smooth side of a huge birch tree by means of sharp splinters. When the meat was thoroughly roasted Ranor fell to and ate until he feared lest he had injured himself by over indulgence. In the beginning he had anticipated tiiat he could eat about half the bear at one sitting but he was siu*- prised to discover that he was capable of storing away only an inconsiderable fraction of the meat. What a rich, savory relish it was! Except for that wondrous meal which he had THE BEAR SKIN 171 partaken after the sun test, this seemed to him the most delicious food that he had ever eaten. It awakened appetites and fleshly desires long slumbering, and he fully realized now that he was not intended by nature to be a vegetarian. When he had stuffed himself until he could eat no more he lay down in the shade and slept like a gorged animal. On awakening it was nearly sundown, and Ranor saw that he must hurry if he would reach the village before night. Hastily digging a hole in the earth he covered its sides with wet moss plucked from the banks of a near-by brook. In this he deposited the roasted remains, covering them carefully with the moss. On top of that he placed six or eight inches of earth and over that a heap of stones. At length he re- turned to the village to find that the guards were about to start on a search for him. The following day he went back to the scene of his feast, carrying with him a quantity of salt which he utiUzed for the double purpose of flavouring the meat and of rubbing it into the hide which he had nailed on the tree. Again he enjoyed a hearty meal of roasted bear, but even the addition of the salt on this second day did not cause it to taste so dehcious as had his first indulgence. Soon he realized that he could not possibly eat all of the meat himself for it would not last much longer and he felt the pity of destroying so rare a tidbit. Suddenly Ranor bethought him of Slim Darrow. Here was a way to repay the desperado for the loan of his clothing which had assisted in the memorable escap>e. Quickly he stripped off a huge chunk of the roast, wrapped it in a piece of cloth, and sought the trail which led to the rear of the prison cave. Early in the afternoon he stood before the bars with a radiant twinkle in his eyes and accosted the imprisoned outlaw. "Bless my cats," hoarsely muttered Darrow, "it's the kid — aJive!" "Yes," replied Banor, as he produced the parcel he carried, 172 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "and here's a present for you. It is to pay you back for the clothes you loaned me. Much obliged." With that he passed through the bars the chunk of roasted bear's flesh. Darrow fell upon it ravenously, without taking time to make an articulate reply, but moaning and grumbling and chortling in crude satisfaction as his teeth tore into the meat. Without waiting for the desperado to finish Ranor hastened down the passageway, not pausing to answer the startled cry that was sent after him. That night, as he sat alone in the doorway of his house looking down across the moonlit table- land, mellow with harvestal verdure, he kept thinking to himself — ^what should he do with the bear's skin? In a few days the skin, preserved by the salt, was thor- oughly dry. Ranor took it down from the tree, spreading it upon the grass near the side of a spring where he lay upon it. What a luxurious couch! It was an exceptionally fine pelt with a glossy nap into which his hands could be buried and lost to sight. He bathed in the spring and then rolled his naked body in the lustrous fur, as proud and happy as a potentate. Now he realized as never before how devoid the Indians were of these simple luxuries which it seemed that an all- wise nature had designed chiefly for the use of man and which no other people, to his knowledge, from the Esquimo of the North to the Zulus of the equator, denied them- selves. Of course, the Sunnite repugnance to the taking of life explained the utter absence in their houses or in their clothing of any species of fur. Even the carcasses of rabbits and chipmunks and, rarely, that of a puma, found anywhere, whether deceased by accident or by lightning or drowning, were buried in the earth with formal ceremony. Yet Ranor never had been told that it was positively unlawful to possess an animal's pelt. Therefore, he roUed this one up, shouldered it, and proceeded to cany it to his house. Just before he reached the outskirts of the village a second and better thought came to him. He concealed the pelt in a THE BEAR SKIN 173 wood and went home without his burden. Before dawn of the next day he had regained it and was waiting by the path that led from the copse to the prison cave. Presently Izara appeared. The months in which he had not seen her had added to her beauty. Her dignity seemed increased, and she had an even greater aloofness. She greeted him without apparent surprise, but formally. "Is all well with thee. Keeper of the Gem?" she asked. Her voice was so level, just as she used it in speaking the ritual in the temple ceremonial, that for an instant he was tempted to reply as of old, sharply and colloquially. How- ever, instead, he kept to his intended purpose. "Yes," he replied, "and I have a present for the High Priestess." With this he unrolled before her the bear's skin. She recoiled in consternation. "How came you by this?" she exclaimed. He told her and then ran his fingers through the glossy pelt, expatiating on its texture. "It is fit only for your couch, O! Izara," he said. "I beg you take and enjoy it." For a moment she was silent, looking at him gravely. "The law prohibits killing; of that you are innocent," she answered, not in the accents of a judge but, as he fondly be- lieved, in the sympathetic tone of a friend who would spare him. "No one before you has ever taken the skin from an animal. It may be sacrilegious. I must seek the counsel of the God. He will enlighten me as to the course that must be pursued. Meanwhile, it would not be well if it were known that you had done this. Therefore, lest your act be discovered, I will accept this piteous evidence of the outrage done to the poor beast, and will conceal it from all mortal eyes." Whereupon, she threw the skin over her shoulder and ran swiftly back toward her palace. Ranor watched her and noted that she was careful that none of the squaws saw her as she disappeared within the stone entrance. He waited for her to reappear, but soon the sun came up, and, fearful of detection in a forbidden place, he returned to his house. CHAPTER XXin Flood and Drought FROM the time of the trial of the renegade with all of the dramatic events which followed so swiftly upon it, Bopu had given Ranor an extremely wide berth. Very rarely and then only at a distance did Ranor see him. Several times he had asked Tuwah about Bopu, and the old Indian had replied succinctly that he was all right, that he was always kept under watch by one or another of the pa- triarchs, and that his life, undoubtedly, was exemplary. Indeed there was little opportunity for the two to come in contact, for Bopu spent his days as one of the men of the tribe who laboured in the fields and his evenings in the far portion of the village around the communal fires, while Ra- nor, whose sole function was simplified into that of guardian of the gem, which required no guarding, felt free to wander about as he chose. However, the day when Ranor had departed with the hatchet to skin the bear, he had run across Bopu, apparently by accident, at the edge of the maize field. He had given the customary salutation of "Ta," and in response had received only a stony- glance and Absolute silence. Not deigning to notice this he had hastened onward but was careful not to proceed directly to the trap which held the bear. He was confident that Bopu would not follow him because the rene- gade was obliged to account at all times for his whereabouts to the patriarchs, and Ranor felt sure he would not risk any displeasure when his reputation for good behaviour was so tenuous. But on returning frojoa the presentation of the 174 ' FLOOD AND DROUGHT 175 skin to Izara, just after dawn, Ranor had passed Bopu again some distance from the bath house toward which the renegade pretended he was going, as was obligatory, it being the morn- ing for the men. Again Ranor said "Ta," cordially, and this time he received in response a muttered "Pu." The aflfront was not one which Ranor could afford to notice but it served to intensify his realization that any departure from the time-honoured custom of burying all skias as nature formed them was, to say the least, rash. For this reason, if for none other, Ranor did not return for some time for one of those valued early-morning inter- views with Izara. However, as he saw no more of Bopu for days and weeks, and was unable to note the slightest change in the trustful demeanour of any of the Indians, he regained courage and eventually concluded that his apprehension had been unnecessary and that the meetings with Bopu were merely coincidental. Now ensued a period in which he was contented to picture to himself the scene in Izara's palace. He knew that her roof was forbidden to all. Not even the most trusted squaw was permitted, at any tune, to set foot there. The roof was her sanctuary, the chancel in which she carried on her mysterious and sacred communion with the Sun. An awning was spread there but what was under it he could only guess. Doubtless one of the husk mattresses utilized by the Indians for bedding. Here, perhaps, she had placed the bearskin, and he fondly imagined her reclining on it under the awning through the heat of the day, enjoying her initial luxury. One thing, however, he said to himself, was no doubt lacking. She would have no mirror in which to survey those charming features, abloom with youth and modesty, though regal in their lines so deUcate and yet so strong. He won- dered if she had ever seen her own blue eyes whose pupils were as transparent as crystal and yet as tantalizingly lovely as would be mignonette if it floated in the sky. The Indians had no mirrors. Ranor asked Tuwah about 176 FRUIT OF THE DESERT this. The old Indian appeared so ignorant of what he meant that he despaired of communicating his idea, although he discovered that the patriarchs distinctly discouraged every effort that was made by any member of the tribe to see him- self, and, especially, herself. The maidens preparing for the OUa Dance were fond of gathering by the stream and bending over to gaze upon their likenesses in the quiet waters but this was so much in disfavour that she who did it too often ran the risk of being excluded from the dance. One morning, while climbing the far side of the mountain, Ranor lost his footing and was precipitated a few yards down the slope. He came to a stop on a small jutting crag which his descent served to clean of debris. He sat on this crag for a moment rubbing his slight bruises and discovered it was formed of feldspar. Digging about its base he unearthed a small deposit of mica. To this he returned day after day with his stone hatchet and dug away until he found what he had hoped was there, a long, flaky vein of isinglass. He was delighted, for he fashioned a piece of soft wood into the form of a paddle, on the blade of which he managed to fasten thin strips of the isinglass. This made a crude mirror. There was one place in the village where the mirror might not be discovered and it was the very place, Ranor con- cluded, where manifest destiny intended it should repose. That was on Izara's roof. No one would see it there, and where else could it find a more fitting service? Thus, again before a dawn, Ranor sought the High Priestess with a present. This time her curiosity at a trinket so entirely new, so foreign to all of her knowledge of any species of utensil, was the first expression she made. Ranor told her how he had fashioned it and she seemed to be delighted. Then the inevitable second thought occurred and she looked at him gravely. "O! white brother," said she, "what strange problems you bring the High Priestess! What new mysteries of which the God has not spoken to you or me! It is forbidden that FLOOD AND DROUGHT 177 the rare sunnites should be touched by the hand of man; it is forbidden that the white and yellow metal which comes from the earth shall be made beautiful. Yet, the God has never said that the ordinary stones of his moimtains should not be made like the running water in which the maidens steal a look at themselves so that they may know how they appear in the eyes of their lovers. I am troubled. I know not what to do." "Do?" exclaimed Ranor. "Take it to the roof of your palEice. Look in it each day and behold there what each hour fills the thoughts of one who worships you." He felt emboldened to say more but she blushed furiously and thrust the mirror back at him with so startling a gesture that he quickly added: "Keep it, I pray you. In it you may see one whom all the Nahneets worship. Keep it and ask of the God if it is not lawful to possess so lovely a treasure." "I will," she replied, calmly, as she concealed the mirror in the folds of her mantle, "only if you promise me to bring nothing more that may trouble the High Priestess. A loyal Nahneet may do no less than this. My prisoners await me." Without giving him a chance to reply she hastened on toward her m.orning duties at the cave. That very day came a heavy rain, long overdue. Now it more than made up for the delay. For many days the sun was not once visible. Thimder filled the mountains. Light- ning flashed over the tableland and the excoriated mesas ran with water which began as tiny rivulets and soon became roaring torrents. After a week the streets of the village were inches deep in water and the fields were so soaked that one who attempted to cross them sank to his ankles in mud. The Indians were lugubriously affected. They stayed mthin doors, not attempting to light fires, and subsisting on cold food and dried nuts and grains. Occasionally, Ranor could see a head poked out and looking for its neighbour like a flooded spaniel imprisoned in a kennel. All of the care- 178 FRUIT OF THE DESERT f reeness and the happiness, all of the spontaneous abandon of a people accustomed to continuous sunshine instantly dis- appeared. They were as slaves to the caprices of nature, and apparently had no thought but obediently to await a change in the sky, sluggishly content to accept this temporary denial of all light. At the end of two weeks, when there was still no diminution in the steady flood of water from the heavens, the situation appeared to be very serious. The patriarchs called a meeting in the councU chamber and asked if the tribe had in some manner offended the God. If so it was now nec- essary to propitiate Him. They decided to take no chances but to order pubUc prayers to be held immediately in the temple. Drenched and looking like half-drowned rats the members of the tribe silently assembled and proceeded in their way to the amphitheatre where the stalls were flooded and where the water stood ankle deep around the porphyry supports of the altar. In her accustomed place Izara led in the long and vociferous prayers in which the God was implored to have mercy upon his over-wet children. As with one voice they all joined in the most ferVent supphcations. Ranor, who stood beside Tuwah, looking at the pitiful figures huddled near by, suddenly realized that there was extremely good reason for the anxiety and fear which gripped one and all alike. Many were coughing, some desperately. On the way back to the vUlage two of the old squaws col- lapsed. That night they died as did one of the patriarchs, Ranor, who viewed the symptoms of the rapid sickness which seized them, knew it to be pneumonia. He, too, now, began fervently to hope that the sun would reappear, for in that beneficent warmth alone could they hope for relief. Ranor felt that if the pneumonia spread the whole tribe might be wiped out. The prayers were not answered that day nor the next. The rain continued to fall in solid sheets in a tireless torrent. The stream had swollen to such an extent that it was already FLOOD AND DROUGHT 179 inundating the tableland and carrying bits of wood and even whole tree trunks washed down from the mountain above, whence it now proceeded with a menacing roar. Early the next morning a mournful cry passed through the village, "the bath house" "the bath house is in danger," called the Indians one to the other. The men gathered near the stream, which had now risen far above the high- est point ever known before, as Ranor was told by Tuwah. If the water rose another foot it would flood the hot geyser. The Indians seemed to fear this more than they feared the pestilential pneumonia. Ranor could not com- fort them by telling them that even if the waters did flood the geyser they inevitably would leave it later on. No one beheved him. To the Indians it seemed that if the geyser were once flooded the source of their marvellous steam baths for which they all had a reverential respect would be gone forever. Stoically and helplessly they looked on as the waters rose inch by inch. Ranor reaUzed that they all felt as if their doom were about to approach. Ranor had not been so desperately depressed. Un- comfortable, of course, with the continued wet, he still had endured it with easy-going philosophy. But now his sympathyfor the Indians became acute. He felt that he must find some way to save their geyser even though he was sure that a flood would not seriously harm it. So he called to the Indians to follow, as he made his way up the ravine a quarter of a rmle. There the bed of the stream mad a sharp turn, just beyond which lay a wide meadow as long as the tableland below. This was not cultivated and was grown with a thicket of underbrush. Here the water had gathered, forming a very shallow pond only two or three feet deep, although around it rose bluffs in such a way that the meadow might easily be converted into a huge reservoir. Ranor quickly saw his opportunity for diverting the stream temporarily into this enomaous basin. It only required the widening of a channel which the 180 FRUIT OF THE DESERT rains had already begun. Quickly he set at this work, bid- ding the Indians assist him. Some ran to get the shovels from the mine, returning shortly. All that day they worked feverishly, widening the channel into the meadow. Then, when the waters had begun to flow in the desired direction, under the leadership of Ranor, whose forgotten lessons in engineering were coming back to him apace, they began the construction of a stone wall which would form a dam to hold the waters from their devas- tating progress down the old narrow canon past the bath house and the geyser. Before nightfall it was apparent to even the most stupid and ignorant of the Nahneets that the cherished treasure of the tribal geyser had been saved from the flood and by the miraculous intervention of the Keeper of the Gem. All looked upon him now with an awe which was added to their previous respect. Inspired by the prospect of saving the geyser the men of the tribe continued in their new-found labour for days until the wall of the dam was built firm and strong of stone and earth, so that when the shaUow pond in the meadow became a reservoir fifteen or twenty feet deep, its overflow could be comfortably taken care of in the old accustomed channel. By this time the choked waters opposite the bath house had receded so that instead of the alarming scant foot between the surface of the river and the geyser there now reappeared again the former comfortable and reassuring nine or ten feet. No sooner was safety assured and all made snug and tight against this desperate onslaught from the heavens than the rain ceased. One day the sun again appeared, serenely content and strong in his former glory as if nothing had hap- pened, as if he loved his children as of yore and as if nothing again could ever cause him to deny them the beneficent presence. During the cold rain and in the depressing anxiety it occasioned a score of the Indians had died, but on the reap- FLOOD AND DROUGHT 181 pearance of the sun all who were suffering from the dread malady, which none gave a name but which Ranor knew to be pneumonia, quickly recovered. Doubtless fear and appre- hension had much to do with the hold it had on them for when they realized that the God was again smiling, thoughts of death went away and health quickly reappeared. Now ensued a period of iminterrupted simshine, which foimd the jQelds a sticky morass of gumbo. Every vestige of seed had been driven out and washed away. All the surface soil had been carried off. In its place lay the coarse silt washed down from the mountains. The maize fields were torn with arroyos and every vestige of vegetation was completely obliterated. The whole tableland was a mass of mud banks, dented as with huge pock marks where the puddles had been dried up. These became shortly like livid cicatrices, unnourished, arid, as bleak as the desert. Ranor realized now the secret of the continued fecundity of the maize fields. Often he had wondered how the soil could be used here generation after generation and not be worked out, for in all ordinary farming communities it bie- comes necessary from time to time to replenish with fertilizer, a species of cultivation of which apparently the Indians were ignorant. Now he saw why they required no fertilizer. The floods carried off the worn-out soil and in its place left fresh, new, rich loam and dirt from the imtouched mountains. However, the new soil whose transport the Indians owed solely to the overabimdant powers of the floods could only be of value in the new season which was approaching if properly watered. That this would occur there was evidently no doubt for all were now busy with industry and happy in expectation. Each day all the grown members of the tribe, men and women, repaired to the fields where they worked the ground into a semblance of cultivated plots and into which they placed the seed that had been carefully protected in the rock cisterns. Then, in the sublime confidence of 182 FRUIT OF THE DESERT spoiled children, they waited. It was inconceivable to them that another flood would come this season, but without doubt a rain, a gently falling, life-giving rain would appear to breathe into the soul of the seed the caressing life which, in due time, would spring into the lush green of a new crop. So intense was the atmosphere of expectation, so absorbed were all iu this heightened drama of the seasons that Ranor, too, participated in their intense feelings, first of fear, then , of relief and, finally, again of anxiety. Death had reduced the working force and Ranor volun- tarUy assisted in all of the accustomed labours, in which he was welcomed and for which he took his thanks in mani- fold grateful glances. Therefore, he had no time to seek Izara. One day, however, he heard her name mentioned [and soon it was passed rapidly from one member of the tribe to another. "Izara!" they cried. Why did not the High Priestess intercede with the God and ask that He send the needed rain? Soon the patriarchs were compdled to pay heed to this tribal demand, and shortly a day was appointed for a rain prayer i in the temple. The High Priestess must publicly appear and intercede with the God lest His loyal children be unjustly visited with the drought. CHAPTER XXIV The Sorceress DURING the rain prayer which shortly occurred one high noon Ranor stood in his accustomed place in one of the front stalls, though Tuwah was no longer beside him. Instead, he was below, near the altar, for on the recent death of one of the patriarchs, Tuwah had auto- matically become one of the twelve. No elections were held for this office, the vacancy going always to the senior male of the tribe. Being thus deprived of the close counsel of his particular friend Ranor listened more carefully than was usual to the comments of the other Indians. He was greatly astonished to hear an undertone of criticism of Izara. This was not open nor obvious, but took the form of a general plaint that it seemed that prayers to the God were no longer effective, and that this was not as it once was in the era long ago, before a white priestess became the tribal mouthpiece. Had they not all seen how ineffectual were the prayers so devoutly rendered at the time of the late flood.'' And why should it now be thought that any prayers uttered through a similar source would be any more effectual? Moreover, was it not possible that the God was striving to reveal to the Nahneets His disapproval of their intermediary by utterly ignoring Her supplications? Not all of this was actually put into words so that Ranor could be sure of it, but a phrase or two here and there and glances which he saw passed toward Izara, glances not wholly of affection and respect, convinced him that this was the feel- 183 184 FRUIT OF THE DESERT ing. He l«*ked ax;ross the amphitheatre to the stall in which Bopu stood surrounded by a number of the younger men, some of the bolder and rasher spirits. He noted a black frown on Bopu's countenance and that he occasionally uttered a fierce exclamation which invariably was picked up and passed on from one yoimg man to another imtil it reached the girl candidates for the 011a Dance, from whom it went to the squaws and, thence, to the braves. Here and there it missed fire and received, in response, only a stohd look of disapproval. However, the net residt of the whole epi- sode was to leave in Ranor's mind the impression that for the first time he had seen the tribe lacking in unity. It was all the more difficult for Ranor to detect this feel- ing because the respect which universally greeted him seemed almost veneration. It wasplain that the Indians regardedhim as no ordinary man. That he had escaped the sun test was, indeed, an unprecedented miracle, but when he had shown the way to save the hot geyser, he had convinced many that there was a divinity, indeed, in his every thought and act. Outwardly there was no seeming change in the accustomed ceremonial of prayer. For several hours all joined sincerely and in imison in the lip service exacted of them by long-estab- lished tribal custom, bowing their heads in the hot sim while Izara, with her face and arms uplifted, cried forth passionate supplications. The Nahneets begged hiunbly for the return of a mere tithe of that rainfall which had so nearly drowned them. If it had not been for their sincerity and their help- lessness Ranor would have been more impatient than he was with the childishness and the futility of it all. He wondered if the time were not ripe when he could dispute with Izara concerning the basic truth of her religion and try to prove to her without too great violence that the behefs in which she was reared should at least be questioned, that man should not ask the sim to do all, but should be determined, rather, to add his own God-given spark of intelligence to the solution of his difficulties. THE SORCERESS > 185 Days passed, and as some of the doubters, not of the God, but of his intennediary, had foretold, the rain did not come in answer to the prayers. The fields began to crack in the blistering heat. The tender little sprouts which were just be- ginning to peep above the ochrish silt withered in the un- relenting, fierce glare. A few weeks more of this and it would be drought indeed, a devastating drought — a calamity! The cure, however, appeared so simple that Ranor laughed to himself when he thought of it, as he did within a few days. There was that magnificent reservoir with millions of gallons of water imprisoned but a short half mile from the maize fields and in a most advantageous position with plenty of gravity to bring it down, if properly sluiced, to the very spots where it was most needed. Irrigation! What was more obvious, what more simple? He thought of this one evening and instantly went to tell Tuwah about, it but his friend was approaching his dwelling as Ranor started out. They met halfway and Tuwah's news diverted Ranor's enthusiasm into a strange channel. "O! Keeper of the Gem," said the new patriarch, "the coimcil has asked that you come to the chamber and privately lead U5 in a prayer to the God for rain. If water does not come to the fields shortly all the ^ain will be destroyed. Then, indeed, are the Nahneets lost!" Ranor followed Tuwah to the council chamber. The whole affair amused him enormously. He felt as he had one Thanksgiving Day as a boy, when, at the dinnw table of his uncle, a devout elder in the chmch, he had bean called upon, without warning, to ask the blessing. Startled and em- barrassed, he nervously had risen to that occasion nobly and had acquitted himself well to the delight of his mother and father, in whose house he had never received such a request. On that occasion he had not indicated, in the slightest degree, his embarrassment or his surprise; he had asked the blessing as though trained to it all his life. Now, in the council chamber, lit by the smoking stone lamps, 186 FRUIT OF THE DESERT surrounded by the twelve grave, white-bearded patriarchs who looked upon him with instinctive endeavour to conceal their fast-mounting anxiety, he offered up a prayer to the Sun in his best archaic Nahneet, imploring for rain with as much fervour as if he had been accustomed to doing it from boyhood. He added, with a ghost of a smile which he reserved to himself, that he would return to his own house and continue, in private, his heartfelt supplications to the deity. In conclusion, he assured the patriarchs that he was confident that he would receive a message from on High before the coming dawn. Early the next day Ranor summoned the patriarchs to come to him. Obediently they arrived, and, like a school master lecturing stupid but willing students, he told them the solution of their grave complexity. Nor did he stop there. He headed the males of the tribe, led by the patriarchs, as they all shortly proceeded to the south slope of the reservoir, and thence down to the tableland. Here under Ranor's direction they quickly constructed a series of sluices, con- trolled at intervals by little piles of cut rock which could be removed and replaced at will In a few days all was ready. Then, at a word of command from Ranor, a huge stone cap which he had caused to be fitted iuto a pocket ia the near side of the reservoir was removed. The waters gushed radiantly down the sluices and soon was pouriag ia a hundred tiny prepared rills through the parched tableland which, in another day, was every- where moist. The crops were saved ! The gratitude of the Indians toward Ranor knew no bounds. If before they had looked upon him with respect they now had for him nothing short of adoration. He heard himself called "priest" and "High Priest," while none except Tuwah and the oldest of the patriarchs dared look upon him directly. Everywhere he was greeted with lowered heads. It was as though the Indians stood in the presence of a superior being. It was said freely that he undoubtedly THE SORCERESS 187 had received direct from the God the knowledge which had enabled him first to save the tribe from flood and then to rescue it from the perils of drought. To himself Ranor said with a chuckle: "If I don't look out I will have a job for life here as Pope." Meanwhile he concluded, in view of his increased authority, that the time had come to put into effect a plan he long had been considering. He determined to seek Izara openly and to attempt to overcome her extraordinary scruples, but with the full knowledge and consent of the tribe. Before he could make a move, however, events were given a sudden sinister turn. Knowledge of it came to him only when he sent a message by one of his guards that he wished the patriarchs to assemble and receive him in the council chamber. Word came back that such a meeting must be post- poned for another day, for the High Priestess was being tried. "Tried?" exclaimed Ranor to the guard who brought him this message. ' ' For what ? ' ' "As a sorceress," said the guard. "It is charged against her that no longer may she speak with the God, that her power is gone, that because of this the floods came to carry us away, that because of this the drought would have destroyed us if it had not been that you, O! High Priest, iu your great mercy, had intervened with the God to spare us." Ranor said nothing in reply except to dismiss the respectful Indian who bore such startling news. Clearly it was a moment for action, but what should he do? The deliber- ateness of the Sunnites had one great advantage: it permitted him time to think. Ranor left his home. One of the guards offered to ac- company him but he signified his desire to be alone. Pro- ceeding along the edge of the maize fields where the sluices showed up in long, regular lines under a pale moon he looked beyond where, far above, rose the majestic mountains. It was an isolated cultivation lost in a vast wilderness. Like this handiwork was npt he a stray flotsam of civiliza- 188 FRUIT OF THE DESERT tion embedded in some prehistoric clime? He felt almost as though he were an imaginative figure in an ancient myth. Recently he had been examining the utensils used by the Sunnites in making their cisterns. They were crude im- plements hewn from the solid rock and were exactly Uke those used by our very remote ancestors in the Stone Age. These Indians may have been in this spot, Hving their same oyster-like existence, when Csesar's mariners were bringing tin from Brittany to Rome. And if the tribe's existence went back that far it might as easily go back to the era in which Cheops was forcing his myriad of slaves to pile stone upon stone for the making of his imperishable monument. Or, just as well to the time when the earliest Tartar doctors tortured at the stake in Thibet the poor damsels who were incompetent to cure a fever by sighing at the moon, thousands of years before the Christian era. Yet here, this night, in twentieth-century North America, he, ripest progenitor of the soundest culture, fortuitously venerated by these an- tediluvian oysters, was hesitating to spring among them and chastise them for submitting the loveliest creature in their midst, and, indeed, the loveliest he had ever seen, to the ignominy of a trial. A trial for what? Sorcery! Ineffectual prayers! This childish nonsense must stop ! However, he must proceed cautiously. If he had ap- prehended that violence would be done to Izara he doubtless would not have hesitated a moment but, realizing the reverence the Indians possessed for all life and knowing that only the High Crime incurred the sun test, he felt sure that Izara stood in no danger of injiuy and perhaps not even of immediate pimishment. He had learned not to take the initiative in apprising the intentions of his red "brothers," as everything in due time voluntarily would be disclosed to him. So, after cooling off his perturbation in the open air, he returned to the village, but when he reached the door of his house he could no longer control his anxiety. Instead of THE SORCERESS 189 I going in and to bed as he had intended he proceeded resolutely to the council chamber. Had not the patriarchs called on him to intercede with their God ? Well, he would call on them ! At the door the old squaws who acted as guards of the council rose from their haunches as Ranor approached, as if to prevent his entrance, but when they realized who it was they lacked the courage to oppose him. Instead, they fell upon their faces as he passed them by and strode into the centre of the group of patriarchs. Within the chamber lit by the smoking lamps was a scene strangely similar to that which had been enacted the night when Ranor had been accused of the High Crime. The only difference was that in the place where he had stood, bound, Izara now sat, with a squaw on each side. None as yet had touched the person of the High Priestess, who was still quite free. One glance at Izara revealed her countenance ablaze vrith smouldering fury. For an instant, when she saw Ranor, she flinched, making an instinctive gesture which he felt urged him to stay away. Instead, he looked sternly to the oldest patriarch. "The Keeper of the Gem has received a message," said Ranor, "that the High Priestess is in danger. Speak! Who has done this thing?" Before any one could answer Ranor saw the lurking form of Bopu precisely where he had been that other night on the accusation of the High Crime. Then, in the centre of the earth floor, he saw the bear skin. On top of it lay the mirror of isinglass. "It is unlawful," said the oldest patriarch, gravely, "for any one except the wise men to share in the verdict of this trial. But, as the Keeper of the Gem is a favourite of the God, an exception must be made of you ! " Was he too late? "Verdict?" Was the trial over? Ra- nor made a step as if to pick up the bear skin and the mirror when his eyes met those of Izara. She so plainly implored; him with the tenderest, beseeching glance to say nothing that 190 FRUIT OF THE DESERT he hesitated. For such a look he would do anything. Such a look he had received twice before. Once, in the dim dawn, when he had assured her of his love, and then again as he lay on the altar at the supreme moment of the sun test. Now here it was for the third time and his heart leaped with joy. Above all else he felt that he must make no mistake which would jeopardize the great influence which he knew that he now wielded. So he waited patiently and silently. The patriarchs had evidently concluded their final con- sultation. The oldest, after looking for a final nod of ap- proval from each of the others, turned to Izara. "The wise men of the Nahneets," said he in his guttural voice, which seemed implacable and inhuman, "have re- ceived your confession that you alone are guilty of taking the clothing made by the God for this honourable animal, this worthy bear " She had "confessed!" Ranor was about stoutly to pro- claim himself as the ctilprit when again her beseeching glance restrained him and, realizing that she knew more than he did of the Indians and their ways, he held his silence. So she had "confessed!" For what reason other than to save him? He was strangely glad, strangely calm. "In this," droned the oldest patriarch, "you are convicted of being less than human, of being savage like the beasts. You have also confessed to the making of this wicked toy in which you may gaze upon your own beauty. In this you are guilty of mortal vanity. It is for these crimes, no doubt, that the God has turned against you. In revenge, he has made of you a sorceress, bringing upon the Nahneets first the flood and then the over-long dryness which threatened to kill their crops and starve them to death. "Of this triple crime, then, you, Izara, once High Priestess, stand convicted by the wise men of the Nahneets. You are mortally vain, a savage, and a sorceress. It is our ver- dict, that before the dawn of to-morrow you shall be banished from the tribe — ^forever!" THE SORCERESS 191 An intense silence ensued, to be broken shortly by the loud wailing of the squaws at Izara's feet. Then the squaws at the door broke into sobs which seemed to be picked up and passed from house to house throughout the village until from all the tribe ascended a vast, moaning anguish. Again Ranor made a move as if to speak. Again Izara conveyed to him with an imploring glance her deep desire that he remain silent. Instinct also told him that it were well that he should retain both his liberty and his full au- thority and prestige. Hence, he remained cautiously and quietly in the background. A moment later, being prodded by the oldest patriarch, the two squaws led Izara from the council chamber. She went out with head erect, apparently unconscious of every- one, as serene as a French noblewoman passing to the guillo- tine, under the Terror! CHAPTER XXV Banishment NO SOONER was Izara gone than Ranor turned on the patriarchs with a dignified but insistent protest. Had they been fair? Might it not be that Izara was trying to shield someone else in confessing that she was guilty of skinning the bear and making the mirror? And how could they determine that her prayers to the God were inefPectual when, as a matter of fact, a way had been shown them how to stem the flood and how to equalize the drought? Were not these great benefits which had come to the tribe proof of the God's answer to the prayers of the High Priestess? And in condemning her had not the wise men placed themselves in peril of the God's displeasure? They listened to him silently and then withdrew for con- sultation to a far corner of the chamber. This consultation, in very low voices, occupied the better part of an hour, while it appeared that Ranor's defence of Izara was being care- fully considered, point by point. Ranor, with difficulty, concealed his impatience, until, finally, the oldest patriarch turned and addressed him, with what seemed to be irrele- vance. "It is the judgment of the wise men," said he, "that you, O! white brother, are the choice of the God as the High Priest of the Nahneets. Our erring sister is no more. The council has spoken." With these words the patriarchs quickly left the chamber. Ranor rushed after them exclaiming: "Stop! I refuse. This is an outrage!" As he reached the door he was con- 192 BANISHMENT 193 fronted by the four guards who stood sternly as if waiting to escort him, whither he knew not. He started to rush after the last of the patriarchs who was disappearing but he was restrained respectfully by one of the guards. "O High Priest!" said this stalwart, bowing low and with humble accent, "those who serve you wait to escort you to your palace." The word "palace" caused Ranor to halt. Could it be that they had evicted Izara and intended to locate him in her place? In any event, he thought that enough time had been wasted in useless parley. He must act now and act quickly. If the guards were waiting to t^ke him to Izara's palace the best thing to do was to follow them. The four led him swiftly along the darkened streets and up the lane that led to the linden copse. His heart beat high with expectation as he approached the palace. At last it was his turn to bestow clemency. He did not know exactly how he would do it but felt sure a way could easily be found. He must first be assured of her safety, then await the morning when he would convince the patriarchs that the God earnestly desired his new High Priest to enjoy the society of the white maiden solately the favourite of Heaven. Arrived at the palace he hardly gave its appointments a glance, although previously intensely curious concerning its arrangement and contents. The guards left him at the door. He rushed within. Quickly he perceived that the two rooms of the first floor were vacant. A bed in the comer of one and a few stone utensils in the other revealed what was apparently the living quarters of the squaws forming the High Priestess's court, if such it might be called. In the farther room was a ladder to the second floor. Up this he speedily climbed. Here were two more rooms, Izara's living apartments. He rushed from one to the other. Vacant! In the farther room a second ladder led to the roof. Up this he rushed into the star-lit night. Except for the awning the roof was bare! 194 FRUIT OF THE DESERT Cursing himself for still further loss of time Ranor quickly regained the ground. One after the other he swiftly searched the four little houses at the edges of the copse. All were vacant. He called his guards and demanded to know what had happened to Izara. Palpably frightened at his insistence, and dominated with a respectful awe for the new High Priest, they pleaded ignorance and implored forbearance. He com- manded them to return instantly to his house and to await him there. Meekly they obeyed. Ranor dashed off down the path to the village. A few rods away he ran into a little group of squaws coming slowly toward the copse, waUing with monotonous, long-drawn-out sobs. In the dim light he had diflSculty in recognizing them as Izara's maids. But when he did so he roughly shook the first, exclaiming: "Where is yoxir mistress? Tell me, where is Izara?" "Gone!" she sobbed. "Gone!" wailed her companions. "Banished!" "You fools! How dared you?" Ranor angrily protested. "The lot of you were not worth her Uttle finger!" The squaws in unison prostrated themselves on the earth in front of Ranor. The nearest grasped his legs and humbly wiped his feet with her hair. "O! High Priest," she wailed, with an intensity which convinced Ranor of her deep suffering. "We loved her! We worshipped her! We only obeyed the law. The wise men command. We are but slaves. Spare us, spare us!" Bidding them rise and with difficulty restraining himself from giving them a further castigation Ranor asked for the full details of Izara's course since she had left the council chamber, perhaps two hours before. Tearfully and haltingly they told him they had escorted Izara to the edge of the maize fields. There a dozen of the principal men of the tribe had taken her from them although they had clung to her and begged that they be banished with her. Despite their tearful and frantic protests she had been BANISHMENT 195 physically torn from their arms, and borne away along the path at the edge of the maize fields. There they had seen the last of her as she was being swiftly transported toward the southern tribal frontier. Ranor hastened along the route they described, hoping to find the men who apparently had executed the sentence of the council. Soon he reached the edge of the tableland which descended into the ravine up which he had come with Tuwah that day when he fixst had discovered the Nahneets. He saw no one. When he reached the abysmal shadows of the ravine where none of the starlight penetrated he was halted by the fear that if he took another step in the darkness he would be caught in one of the traps. Knowing the location of these he could avoid them easily in the daytime but at night he did not know the way. In this dilemma Ranor slowly retraced his steps until again he stood at the edge of the tableland. Here, for a moment, he debated. What should he do.!* Should he return and wait for morning and then attempt, by argument, to con- vince the patriarchs that they were wrong, or should he wait where he was for daylight, and then proceed alone in what was the first essential, the recovery of Izara? As the minutes passed the coolness of the latter part of the night gradually soothed his impatience. The simple solu- tion of all his great perplexity came to him. Why had he not thought of it before? How obvious it was! Had not the wise men done his wooing for him? Had not the wise men conducted for him his theological inquiry? Doubtless the wise men had made for him the convert that he so long had desired. There remained only one thing for him to do — ', find her, alone! Together, then, they would seek that civili- zation which to him had seemed lost. There was still time before dawn for him to reflect that the Sunnites must indeed have taken a very profound hold on him for him not to see this solution the instant he learned ; 196 FRUIT OF THE DESERT of Izara's impeaclunent. Why, until that minute, he had been thinking, not as Ranor Gaul, scion of the wealthy Gauls of Philadelphia, sojourning in the Southwest for the benefit of his health. Instead, he had been thinking and acting as a Sunnite, thinking and acting as if his forefathers had been vegetarian red men, content with little, ambitious for noth- ing, and not meat-eating Caucasians in the habit of going after what they wanted and getting it. As the hours slowly passed he became very much ashamed of himself, quite dis- gusted with his recent "slavery," and resolved that it was ended. Let the dawn but appear and he would shake the Sunnite dust from his feet forever! The darkness grew more intense. The moon which had [been showing at midnight had long since disappeared and ' now the stars seemed infinitely far away. It was evidently [the dark hour before dawn. In this hour he bethought jhim of an assistance near at hand and which he had, here- tofore, foolishly neglected. Slim Darrow! Would not the desperado be an invaluable accomplice, not in the escape,, but in the return across the hundreds of miles of mountains and desert which still intervened between him and all he once held dear? Ranor directed his steps cautiously toward the prison cave. He reached the granite passageway without seeing or hearing anybody. Standing before the prison bars he called softly: "Slmi,Shm! Wake up!" j After repeated calls a throaty voice proceeded from the cave: "Is it th' kid?" "It is I, Ranor Gaul." "Have they chucked ye in th' coop again?" "No. Be quiet, listen! I've come to get you out." "That listens good. Go to it!" "If I let you out. Slim," Ranor whispered, "will you show me the way across the moimtains back to God's coimtry?' By this time the first faint tinge of dawn was in the sky and Ranor could see the pinched face of the desperado pressed BANISHMENT 197 against the bars, as he muttered intensely, "Lem'me outta here, kid, an' I'm yours from Hell to breakfast. I'll jine ye in anythin' from liftin' chickens to cuttin' throats!" Ranor's reply was to slip out the key stave which held in place the upright bars of the entrance to the prison. In a few seconds Darrow stood free in the fresh air, stretching himself to an ungainly height, while Ranor deftly relocked the bars to prevent the egress of any of the Indians who had been wakened and who were now pressing eagerly forward. "Come," said he, softly, leading the way down the gran- ite approach. i, Before the sim was up they had reached the end of the farthest ravine on the frontier. As they safely passed the last trap and avoided the net which hung beyond it, Darrow said: "Hold up, kid ! Ain't ye goin' to carry off some o' them purty jools these varmints have cached? Ye ought to know th' layout by this time an' how to grab 'em." "No, Slim," answered Ranor, firmly, "we've seen the last of the Indians and of all they own. Remember your agree- ment to do as I say." • The old desperado, haggard with much fasting, with an unkempt beard that fell over his gaunt chest, naked except for a cloth about his middle, respectfully touched his hand to his tousled hair as he said: "Lead th' way! Ye're th' captain!" CHAPTER XXVI The Rock Ledge RANOR started to push along the side of the stream which he had followed with Tuwah in approaching the tableland more than a year before, but the out- law halted him, protesting that he was not pursuing the right course. If they went in that direction, which was southwest, Darrow said they would find nothing but arid land and event- ually the Grand Canon, beyond which lay the hundreds of miles of desert. There was perhaps a thousand miles with hardly any vegetation before they could cross the Mojave and reach Los Angeles. Darrow insisted that they should strike straight north after giving the village a wide berth. In that direction, al- I though the country was hilly and heavily wooded, they would find plenty of sustenance and, Darrow believed, it was only about two hundred and eighty miles to the telegraph line which ran from Utah City to Flagstaflf. Ranor paid all too little attention to these important direc- tions for he was searching in the underbrush, on the banks of the stream, in the grass, over the moss, down among the pebbles, like a hound on a scent. "That's all very well, SUm," said he at length, in reply to Darrow's insistent questions. "I want to get away right enough, but first I must find someone." " Ye 're keen enough about it fer it to be a gal." Ranor's only reply was to more sedulously examine every yard of the ground as they very slowly advanced. " 'Tain't that purty white one that kep' th' jail back yon- der, be it?" 198 THE ROCK LEDGE 199 "It's the High Priestess," said Ranor. "The Indians ban- ished her and that is the principal reason that I am here. You had better help me find her because you owe your release to the fact that she was banished." "Bet yer life I'll help ye," Slim gaily responded. "She's a right tony gal, too. Didn't she an' me hev our pictures in th' same papers together?" Oblivious of this remark Ranor had become absorbed in something he had discovered in a little space of sandy gravel near the bed of the stream. He called Darrow and together they examined some marks there. "Looks like footprints," said the outlaw, "only they're shod." "They're hers," said Ranor, with intense relief. "I am glad she has her birch-bark sandals. It would be a tough journey without them." This was said despite the fact that his own feet were bare, though now well toughened. " Come on! We must not lose this trail." For a mile or more the trail was plain and easy to follow. Then it disappeared abruptly in the waters. Placing a large white stone at the spot where the prints ceased, they crossed the stream and then parted, Ranor going down and Darrow up, after an agreement to reunite whenever one should call for the other. A quarter of a mile away Ranor found the footprints again and sent forth a loud "hello." Presently Darrow joined him, but only to find his young friend troubled, for now beside the prints of the shod feet appeared the prints of a pair of naked feet. Whose could they be? Whence did they come? "Look!" exclaimed the outlaw. "Th' varmint was after her. See how th' prints cross hers an' then back again? He went 'longside her." The trail was very clear now for two miles or more, for the stream proceeded here along a sylvan course with low-lying banks lush with the fresh greenery of early summer. The footprints led along the smooth, sandy gravel near the edge 200 FRUIT OF THE DESERT I of the water. Again they lost them, but this time the trail was quickly picked up directly across the stream, which it now left, striking abruptly into the underbrush and going toward the north. Slim was much reheved, declaring that "th' gal" must know where she was going and the right direction to follow if she wished to reach civilization. "How'd she know th' way? She musta bin a papoose when they brang 'er in." Not far from the stream the trail spread. The shod prints went on directly north, while the marks of the naked feet shied away to the west into the undergrowth where they were very difficult to follow. This caused a slight halt. Ranor, however, promptly made up his mind as to the course to be followed and ordered SUm to take the trail into the underbrush while he kept straight on after the marks of the shod feet. They agreed that if they did not come together by 1 the middle of the afternoon they would work their ways back to this fork in the path and there meet again. An hour later Ranor was halted by distant voices. He had been steadily climbing a hill up which the trail had led him. Just above was a ledge of rock jutting out, and from this Itedge came the voices. He was electrified at the velvety ', softness in one of them. It was Izara's. The other he did not recognize, but it was evidently that of a man and soon he ! detected some of the phrases. They were talking in Sun-' nite, she calmly, the other with a low and passionate fervour. Realizing that it would not do for him to appear on the scene with the disadvantage of coming from below so that his head would be first visible, Ranor made a slight detour, very cautiously climbing up until he was above the ledge. Shortly , he could look down. There, on a wide spur affording a com- fortable resting place, stood Izara, garbed in a Sunnite mantle and her birch-bark sandals, her hair braided and coiled above her head which was arched with that regal dignity to which THE ROCK LEDGE 201 he had become accustomed in observing at the ceremonials in the temple. Izara's back was pressed against a wall of rock and she stood with feet wide apart, her arms folded, as if at bay. A moment later Ranor managed to draw a step nearer without making any noise so that he could see her vis-£i-vis. It was Bopu. He stood a few steps in front of her, crouch- ing as if to spring. His small greedy eyes were dilated and his pudgy brown fingers were working spasmodically as he clenched and unclenched his hands. It was with very evi- dent difficulty that he restrained himself before making a still further advance. As Ranor watched through the screening leaves of a spray of laurel he noted the contradictory emotions on the crafty countenance of the Indian. There was yet just a trace of humility, evidently the memory of the awe which all of the Sunnites always revealed in the presence of the High Priest- ess. But this did not last for long. As the conversation continued it was supplanted by a fierce animal glow of in- sensate desire. "The God will punish you if you break the law," Ranor heard Izara say in her old manner just as if there had been no trial by the Wise Men, no banishment. "You no longer have the ear of the God. Speak for your- self," snarled Bopu. "I tell you only what you know as well as I," came in calm, steady tones from the erstwhile High Priestess. "And I speak what I know. Bopu loves Izara." "If so, then Bopu will leave Izara and return to the Nahneets." A high raucous laugh shrilled from the Indian's throat. "Leave Izara?" he cried. "Never! Leave Izara for the beasts to devour? Ha! Ha!" He flexed his biceps and struck them proudly. "Bopu will protect Izara." Sud- denly the laugh left his face and into it his passion mounted, as he added in a lower but more intense tone: "I think of 202 FRUIT OF THE DESERT you night and day, for weeks, for months, for years. You are no longer High, no longer a Priestess. I am no longer Nahneet. Bopu is a man, Izara a woman! We are alone! Come!" He extended his arms vigorously. She shrank from him as far as the rock wall would permit, pressing her flesh back into it with a desperation which Ranor could plainly see she was trying to conceal from the determined savage who confronted her. "Come!" cried the Indian, as he advanced. "Izara is Bopu's squaw." She unfolded her arms slowly and calmly without saying a word, flexing her fingers, even as the Indian did his. There was no sign of weakness in her, no sign of timidity or fear. Ranor could not help but thrill at the sight of her lithe body as it was set for a fierce contest and he realized that, even without any interference, the Indian would not have an easy conquest. However, Ranor waited no longer, but meas- uring the groxmd carefully, sprang lightly to the ledge. CHAPTER XXVII The Fight THE Indian quailed, averting his eyes, and Ranor realized that, despite his apparent defiance of the laws of the Sunnites, he had not yet entirely shaken oflf the superstitious fear in which he had been bred. For the first moment, at least, he was possessed by the customary awe that always would be felt by any Sunnite in the presence of a High Priest. The relaxation of Izara was imperceptible. Her flesh pressed less firmly into the rock, her hands imflexed. That was all. She looked at Ranor with an aversion that was simi- lar, though perhaps less in degree, than that with which a moment before she had faced the Indian. Not a sound escaped her lips. She still appeared calm, her head erect, her eyes imdismayed. Ranor advanced instantly to the Indian, touched him sharply on the elbow, and pushed him back several paces to the rear of the ledge. The physical touch seemed to elec- trify the red man. He looked at Ranor with slowly returning confidence and in a very brief interval he seemed to realize that before him stood not a god, not even the intermediary of a god, but a human man Uke himself, his rival, his hated enemy! The physical contact had robbed him of all his religious scruples. Now the sneer reappeared on his coun- tenance. His slatted eyes were lighted with an even fiercer passion than they had revealed a moment before when he had confronted the defenceless girl. His muscles regained the slack litheness of the poised puma. Slowly, consciously, his 803 204 FRUIT OF THE DESERT hand advanced like the paw of a cat until it barely touched Ranor's arm. The contact reassm-ed him. The hand was withdrawn, and a joy, as of intense internal satisfaction, seemed to suffuse the Indian's entire body. "You!" he snarled, "you, the white stranger, not the God, not the priest! You love her, too!" Ranor gazed at him fixedly, with a calm intensity which served only to heighten the flame raging within the red breast. "Be gone!" he commanded. "Back to the tribe where you belong." A glance from the vulpine eyes passed swiftly from Ranor's head to his feet, pausing for a moment at his thin waist, so much less stalwart than that of the stocky red man. Where would the white foe be most vulnerable? The glance darted back to Ranor's throat, soft and roimd, and in marked contrast to the corded, taut throat of the sinewy Sunnite. This duel of the eyes occupied but a few seconds. It con- cluded, and without a further glance or a sound of warning Bopu sprang for Ranor's throat, leaping at him like a cata- moimt on its prey. Ranor, remembering his college boxing instructions, moved at the same moment forward and a bit to one side. Bopu's hands were open Uke extended claws to grasp the throat of his foe, but Ranor's were clenched. One of the white man's fists came up, landing flush over the Indian's jugular vein. The other came down with a very powerful impact over his eye tooth. Locked intensely in each other's embrace they crashed together to the rocky floor, Ranor underneath and the Indian on top, tearing with his claw-like hands at Ranor's throat, while, like a bull-dog, he sought to sink his teeth under the palate of his adversary. Ranor's doubled blow had been, to a certain extent, suc- cessful. Otherwise he doubtless instantly would have been the victim of a vise-like grip from which he might not have escaped alive. These blows were totally unexpected by the THE FIGHT 205 Indian, and their surprise added to their shock prevented him from instantaneously securing a perfect hold. For a moment the two bodies, red and white, writhed and squirmed in a fast-revolving spume of arms and legs and naked torsos from which, shortly, dripped blood that oozed from many slight wounds caused by the small, sharp rocks that lay on the floor of the ledge. A foam frothed over the mouth of Bopu from whose heaving chest was emitting a long series of snarling, throaty cries, the exultation of mortal combat. Meanwhile, from every nerve centre of his body and from the veiy fibre of his soul Ranor felt that an appeal was being made for his last resource of strength. It was like the super- nal call that came at the final ten yards of his intercollegiate half mile when he had won the championship from every competitor, while he was running neck and neck with the finest athletes of his day. It was not the frenzied call of a savage lust for flood but the calm summons of his Nor- man ancestors summoning the final cohorts to battle. Ranor did not feel the rocks cutting his flesh. He did not feel the sharp teeth of the Indian as they bit in upon his jawv bone. He did not feel the claw-like hands of Bopu as they struggled for a hold upon his windpipe. Instead, ignoring these savage methods of conflict, his powerful arms slipped around the naked waist, seeking the secure purchase of a ham- mer lock over the small of the back. In a moment, with a great exultation, he felt that this was achieved. Then, with- out the slightest warning, he put forth his last ounce of strength and with one mighty heave from his thighs and shoulderblades and the back on which he was lying, he hurled the Indian over his head and Bopu came down with a re- sounding thwack on the edge of the ledge. The surprise of this attack, with its dramatic unexpected- ness, as well as the concentrated and skilful force with which Ranor had made it, shook Bopu's confidence, and, for the moment, turned the tide of battle. Ranor was free. He turned quickly to his hands and knees 206 FRUIT OF THE DESERT and rose unsteadily to his feet. At the same moment Bopu attempted to spring up hthely, like a puma, but a look of animal wonder swiftly crossed his face, for one leg refused to move. The bone had been snapped by the fall. This, how- ever, served to deter him only briefly. With one leg he launched himself anew on the foe who fought with such be- wildering methods. Ranor did not wait. He noted the very slight limping hesitation with which Bopu had regained his standing posi- tion and saw that he had a decided advantage. Instantly he leaped like a football tackle for the injured leg. Down they fell again together, Ranor wrenching and tearing the Indian's legs, while Bopu again sought what he well knew to to be that frail, vulnerable spot, the white man's throat. Not a sound did the red man emit now. The time was past for his battle cries. Only a bloody froth appeared upon his lips, while his eyes breathed forth menacing defiance and the desire to maim and kill. Izara stood as motionless as if carven in stone, but she breathed very deeply while she looked upon the lethal con- test as impartially, apparently, as the patriarchs had looked upon Ranor when he lay boimd on the altar in the sim test. Of her both men were quite oblivious. They had neither the time nor, apparently, the desire to know what she thought or even if she were there. So far the battle might have been called even. While Bopu had suffered a broken leg and had been outmanoeuvred. Still Ranor bore all the visible marks of the strife. Bopu's teeth had torn away some of the flesh from his jaw, while his fingers had gashed the white man's throat and Ranor, having been mostly underneath, was bleeding from many cuts made by the rocks. Thus he was bloody from head to foot. And ypt, a close observer could not have failed to note that the Indian was spent while Ranor appealed only to have secured his second wind. They were now again on the rocky floor, locked in a terrific vise-like embrace of which the Indian's THE FIGHT 207 appeared the more dangerous, always clawing for Ranor's throat. Again came a sudden surprise. Working his body under the Indian's, Banor secured that elbow and arm grasp around his middle known as the half -Nelson. Again he put forth his full strength. In a trice the red man lay sprawled on his back on the floor while Banor leaped on him with a culmina- tion of mounting fury; he, in his turn, now reaching for the throat. It seemed as if he had sloughed off the veneer of his athletic training, and had reverted to the nether instincts of a forgotten savagery. He plunged his hands into the windpipe of the prostrate Indian and shook desperately as with a fierce desire to tear out life. In the very height and climax of his triumph a nameless something caused Ranor to pause. There was no response. The Indian was not fighting back. Even as he clutched Bopu's throat firmly and finally in his own two hands with a grasp which he felt that he would not release until the other life was extinct, he hesitated. The red form lay under him limp. He brushed his eyes into which the blood was flowing from a cut above his forehead and saw the eyeballs of the red man turning upward, slowly., Ranor relaxed his grasp. Slowly and painfully he regained his feet. The red form lay motionless before him, not hud- dled in the contortions of one who had died in agony, but lithely, as if stabbed through the heart. Now, for the first time, Ranor had a chance to look toward Izara. For the first time she betrayed an emotion. Her eyes were moist. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words came. She sank back supinely against the rocky wall and in another moment had collapsed, like a faded lily on its stem. Ranor rushed to her, taking her in his arms, kissing her, and then wiping the blood from her face where it fell from his own, while he called forth his love and his relief and his thanksgiving. 208 FRUIT OP THE DESERT Minutes passed. Finally, after what seemed an age, she opened her eyes. She looked at him with a gaze so tender, so beseeching, and yet so peculiarly reproachful that his heart was wrung with a pain he could not understand and much less voice. Her head sank against his breast, and she broke into uncontrolled sobbing, moaning indistinguishable words which in vain he tried to induce her to speak more dearly. Many more minutes passed. He was unconscious of the flight of time, imconscious of his bruises, unconscious of the cuts where the blood was drying in the op)en wounds, un- conscious of the late desperation of the mortal combat which he so luckily had survived. He knew, only that she lay in his arms, that she was sobbing on his breast, and that at last they were, as he thought, united. Finally, she did control herself sufficiently to survey him with closer attention, and he realized now that his hurts could not be deep, for in her eyes he read that she was looking, not in pity upon a weak man or a hurt one, but with ineffable reproach upon a strong man who had conquered, a powerful man erect in gory triiunph. "Oh!" she moaned, with commiseration, and sorrowfully, "the God punishes all who loll!" Even as she said this Ranor heard a wondering cry from above him, near the space where he had been hiding before he sprang to the rock. He looked up to see the gaunt form of Slim Darrow leaping to the ledge, but with a startling ciy of warning. Ranor then looked the other way. Above him there was the learing, demoniac face of Bopu while aloft over his head, about to crash down upon him, was held a jagged stone. Even before Bopu hurled the stone Slim Darrow sprang, and in his two hands he hdd a sharp piece of granite the size of a man's head, which, as he leaped, he loosed. This crashed into Bopu's skull, splitting it in twain, and he fell as falls a tree riven by lightning. When thrown by Ranor the Indian merely had beea THE FIGHT 209 stonned, but this, indeed, was for him the end. The rock which he had hurled with his last gesture missed Ranor by the fraction of an inch. With one swift glance at Darrow Izara collapsed in Ranor's arms, breathing softly: "I thank the God you have been spared the curse of one who kills!" CHAPTER XXVm At the Telegraph Pole IZARA took from her girdle an olla containing some of the precious elixir. A draft from this promptly restored Ranor. After his cuts had been bathed in a near-by spring he hardly knew that he had been in a fight. He went with Izara to this spring which was a few rods from the ledge, and when they returned an hour later they found that Darrow had managed to coUect the ingredients for an ex- cellent meal. He had found a patch of wild melons near by. Blueberries also were plentiful. With the melons and blueberries beside him Darrow was seated on the edge of the ledge plucking a partridge which he had brought down with a club a few minutes before, as these birds in the wilderness do not fly away on the approach of man. Darrow urged Ranor to collect sticks for a fire that they might enjoy roast bird. Ranor was halted by Izara. "It is imlawful to eat the flesh of an animal," she said, gravely. This was a facer. Ranor looked at her in astonishment and realized that she was quite serious, but he did not pro- pose to trifle with this sort of nonsense any longer, so he answered: "I am not a Nahneet and you are no longer one." "I shall always obey the law of the God." Her imtroubled calm annoyed rather than distressed him. "Well, I think these wild partridges are pretty toothsome. So if you will pardon me I'll help my friend Slim. I think if you get a whifiE of this bird you'll join us." 210 AT THE TELEGRAPH POLE 211 Her response was an eloquent, disdainful silence. Darrow and Ranor built the fire and in a short time the partridge was ready. Meanwhile, the three had partaken bountifidly of berries and melons which, washed down by the cool water from the spring, were wonderfully refreshing. Darrow was the cook and hung the plucked bird on a forked stick over the fire. Izara avoided looking at the operation and pres- ently, seeing something up the side of the mountain, ran away, saying that she would return immediately. Just as the cooking was finished she came back with her hands fuU of last year's hazelnuts which she had found on the ground, well dried, having rolled into the underbrush where they had been protected throughout the rainy season, the place of their concealment being a little pocket behind a rock on the steep slope of the mountain. Izara appeared with the nuts at the moment when Darrow lifted from the fire the scorched, sizzling bird which he tore in two with one firm wrench, offering half to Ranor. At the same time Izara held forth a handful of hazelnuts. Ranor looked at the half of the broiled bird longingly. "Get a move on, kid," said Darrow, chafingly. "That's about as dainty a morsel as ye'll ever slip onto yer tongue." Izara said nothing. She stood immovable, holding forth the nuts almost in the conventional piose of a carven fig- ure. Ranor felt that there was something of the stolidity of the Indian in her, still something of the aloofness of the priestess. It was quite unnecessary for her to say anything. Her presence and her gesture were more eloquent than words. After a moment of indecision he took the nuts and began cracking and eating them while he replied to the outlaw: " No, thanks. Slim, there's hardly enough for one in that bird. Eat it yourself." Darrow postponed the argument until after he had picked every last morsel of flesh from the partridge, had cracked open every bone, and had sucked out the marrow. Then, after remarking that he wished he had the "mate to that £12 FRUIT OF THE DESERT beggar, " he said to Ranor: "Are you goin' to let th' gaJ mn ye like that, kid? If ye keep this up ye'll be eatin' nuts an' berries an' makin' prayers at th' sun like th' tamal redskins th' rest o' yer life." Ranor laughed. "Oh, I don't know," said he. "I lived with them more than a year and I'm sort of used to their ways. They never did me any harm." "Nor yer insides any good, either. Their eats are like th' passley a swell restaurant puts alongside a steak — ^jus' trimmin's." Izara, of course, did not imderstand the conversation which was carried on in the plainsman's vernacular. When she talked with Ranor it was in the archaic Sunnite, but she gathered the drift of the conversation instinctively and she signified her approval of Ranor's attitude with a gracious smile. It was now late in the afternoon. They decided to make camp for the night. The men left the rocky ledge to Izara having brought to it some moss and leaves for a bed, while they withdrew to a sheltered place by the spring. At the earUest dawn they were ready again to start. Now Ranor encountered an unexpected snag. Izara did not want to move on. Where were they going? Why, back to civilization, of course, he told her. Back to his people, to her people. "But they are heathen," she answered, simply, with the bland-Uke, ingenuous smile of a child. "You may go if you wish, but I shall stay with nature and the Sun." She was so casual about it, apparently as though uttering a fact against which there was no argument, that he hardly knew what to say. He protested that he had no intention of leaving her under any circumstances. This she also ac- cepted calmly without any show either of approval or of disapproval. He was extremely nonplussed at her attitude whidi was so peculiarly distant that he blinked his eyea, wondering if all AT THE TELEGRAPH POLE 213 that he had gone through was a dream or not. Was this the gbl who had saved him from death in the Sun test? Was this the girl who had saved him from the condemnation of the Wise Men by claiming that she and not he had skinned the bear? Was this the girl whom only yesterday he had rescued from the clutches of the renegade? Was this the girl whom he had repeatedly assured of his love? He began to wonder if^^her long life with the Indians had not reversed in her all the normal impulses of feminine nature. Yet, could he forget the morning in the linden copse when he had escaped from the prison and she had for a passing moment accepted his embrace? Could he forget that re- assuring, heavenly smile which she had given him when he lay bound upon the altar about to be incinerated by the infernal death machine? And only the day before, had she not lain sobbing in his arms while Bopu was killed before them? These few rare moments — ^in all, it was true, only a few minutes out of the year that he had known her — spoke volumes as against the impersonality of their relations which she seemed now as determined as ever vigorously to main- tain. Could it be that, despite the banishment she had endured, despite the ignominy to which she had been sub- jected by the Indians, she stiU remained loyal in thought and deed to the religion in which she had been reared? That must be it! It must be that she still reverenced all of the ways of the Sunnites, who so long had honoured her, holding them blameless for condemning her for the guilt which she falsely had confessed. Ranor persuaded Darrow that they had better rest for a day. While the outlaw was scoiunng the woods for another partridge Ranor sat with Izara beside the spring and tried to tell her something of the life into which he now wished to take her. Be told her of his father and mother, of the great red stone house in the vast distant city of Philadelphia, of the commodious country villa in the lovely sylvan Bryn Mawr, of his school-bred sister, a girl about Izara's age, of his Sister's 214 FRUIT OF THE DESERT horses and her racmg car, and of the many dashingyouthswho filled her time with merriment and excitement. Izara lis- tened like a child to a tale of a far country, though always with a curious mantle of reserve as of one accustomed to resolving all things into their elements and of judging them impartially, like one having authority over the basic facts of life. She asked about the religion of his sister and her worship. He described the family church, the pastor, the weekly ceremonies, the congregation, the method of prayer. "Yet they eat animals who have souls. They do not worship the Sun!" was her sole conunent after each description. Ranor felt that her objections were childish except one — that about worshipping the sun. That appeared to him in a way that he could not explain even to her. The sun had per- formed a miracle in his own life. It had snatched him from the very jaws of death, and he could not find a word with which to combat her literal worship of the orb as a veritable deity. He felt, indeed, that he was atune with a symbolic sun worship which coincided with her literal one and that if he indulged in an argument on the subject he, and not she, would be in danger of conversion. All the platitudes that he had learned in his youth about false gods and heathen idols died on his lips as he was about to utter them. In the late afternoon the three enjoyed another meal, Ranor and Izara partaking of the berries, melons, and nuts, while Darrow revelled in a brace of partridges and a rabbit which he had killed. Izara, at all times, avoided looking toward the outlaw as he indulged in this feast which, to her, seemed fiendish. As they sat on the ledge through the twilight a brilliant idea occurred to Ranor. He presented it to Izara imme- diately. Why should she not go out among the white heathen as a missionary? Why not convert them to the religion of which she was so exalted a devotee? She smiled upon him from her superior wisdom. "No one can change the heart of man except the Sun." AT THE TELEGRAPH POLE 215 "Well, you have my heart. You can change that to any- thing you want," Hanor answered. "No. The God alone can do that." Expressions such as these were all that Ranor could induce her to make. Shortly they retired again for the night as before. Ranor was obliged to explain to Darrow that he was having difficulty in persuading Izara to go with them. "Then we'll hev to hogtie th' little wench, an' kidnap 'er," was Darrow's prompt solution of the problem. Ranor, of course, did not submit to such an idea, but in the morning he arrived at a compromise. He induced Izara to start on the march north by assuring her that Darrow knew another tableland similar to the one occupied by the Sunnites which would afford a protection for them against wild beasts. Even then Izara was loath to go tmtil Ranor happily remembered the hot geyser. Whereupon he added that this tableland also had a hot geyser. This convinced her that she must go with him, for she declared that she already severely felt the deprivation of the steam baths. For the ensuing three weeks they marched north, steadily north, until they had crossed a range of mountains and a deep valley and had come to an arid plain. Here Ranor and Izara wanted to stop, but Darrow assured them that it was only a day's journey across this waste to the place they were seeking. Day by day, as they marched along, Izara would ask questions of Ranor about his family and his friends and to the replies which he freely gave he noted that Darrow paid careful attention. Occasionally the outlaw would ask a question. Once he made a remark: "Then yer dad must be a million- aire, kid, if he Uves Uke that." Ranor did not reply directly, but after this he often felt that there was a change in Darrow's attitude toward him, and that the farther they got from the wilderness the more intense became Darrow's feeling that after all he was an out- 216 FRUIT OF THE DESERT law and his companion a member of that class on which heretofore he had preyed. They began the march into the plain after gathering a good supply of what they could find to eat in the last patch of timber through which they went. With Darrow it was two roast woodchucks, while Izara and Ranor each carried about a quart of nuts. The end of the first day on the plain found them apparently lost in an arid waste. As twilight began to settle down Darrow saw something in the distance which brought from him a joyful shout. "At last!" he cried, "we're saved. Come on, kid! Bring th' gal." It was the telegraph line. "I knew she was here somewhere." "What good will the telegraph do us?" Ranor lugubriously asked. "Why, 'tain't more'n a hundred miles to th' nearest station. I'll tap 'er an' they'll be out in th' momin' in a motor car lookin' for th' break. That's where we get a free ride back ter some red likker." Luckily Izara did not understand what Darrow said and Ranor made no effort to explain. As the moon came up they reached the telegraph line. A few minutes later Darrow climbed nimbly to the top of the nearest pole carrying two sharp pieces of rock with which he severed the wire. Shortly after that the three sank wearUy and thirstily to rest at the foot of the pole. Izara slept on one side of Ranor, a few yards away, while Darrow slept on the other side a similar distance off. At the first Ulac tinge of dawn Ranor awoke and looked to- ward the spot where Izara had lain down. She was gone. He looked toward the spot where he had last seen Darrow. The outlaw, too, was gone. As the sun rose he gazed des- perately all about. Nowhere in all the desolate waste was there in sight a living thing. CHAPTER XXIX The Caftubed Sandpiper A MOTOR car bowling over the short sage grass arrived at the cut in the telegraph wire the middle of the fore- noon. It carried two linemen. One of them spiked his way to the top of the pole and shortly repaired the cut. Before he started down he scanned the horizon and saw some- thing which caused him to call to his companion. "I think I see off yonder the pestiferous galoot that done this. Crank Lizzie and we'll nail him." Fifteen minutes later the motor car halted beside a bronzed and bearded figure which wore just about enough clothing to make a pair of pocket handkerchiefs. "It's a sandpiper," said one of the linemen. "No, he's a luny Piute wandered out of the booby hatch up to the reservation at Fort Russell. Look and see if he's got a knife in that G string." "He couldn't hide a toothpick unless it was in the hair on his face." The linemen now stood on each side of Ranor looking him over with amiable curiosity, while he, with agreeable good nature, submitted silently for a few minutes, enjoying to the fullest his first sight of these denizens of the fringe of civiUzation. For the moment he was too exultant with the joy of the realization that at last he had come back, alive and well, to say anything. But when one of the linemen ad- vanced and made as if to take hold of him he spoke. "It's all right, boys," said Ranor, "I did not cut the wire but you can blame it on me if you like. A pal of mine did it. 217 218 FRUIT OF THE DESERT It was the only way we knew to call for help. Now that you're here I have appointed myself a committee of one to welcome you. How are the folks? Will you give me a lift? " The linemen looked from one to the other in amazement. Their jaws dropped and in unison they grunted their sur- prise. Finally one of them said, "Why, the crazy Piute talks American and everything." The other added: "How did you get out here on the desert? Don't you know you're about as lost as a swallow in a sand- storm?" "Its a long story, boys, and there's no time to tell it just now. First I want to find my lost pardner. He and a young lady we are escorting " One of the linemen looked to the other, giving a broad wink and shrugging his shoulders, while his companion significantly tapped his forehead. "A young lady, eh?" he inquired, with affected noncha- lance. "Just like that! You took a stroll in the garden, I suppose, during afternoon tea and thought you'd say, 'Hello, central' before going to the opera. " The other lineman grunted, not unkindly, "The jwor bug!" "Come along, Munchausen. His Grace, the Duke here, will take you this afternoon to the King. Only you'd better put on your lavender spats, or His Majesty won't receive you." The second lineman took hold of Ranor's arm and started to assist him into the car. Ranor still smiled amiably. "Now, boys," said he, "I know this is going to be a strain on your credulity, but I want you to listen. I'm not a Piute, and I'm not crazy. I'm as white as either of you, only I've been living in the sim like you see me now for more than a year. I've been 'way down in the Southwest with a wonderful tribe of Indians — the Sunnites. Did you ever hear of them? " At the beginning of his statement the linemen paused and THE CAPTURED SANDPIPER 219 listened to him attentively until he spoke of the "wonderful tribe of Indians" when again a patronizing smile appeared on both their countenances. One of them remarked: "Forget it. Bo! There's nothing but desert, mountain, and caflon 'twixt here and Flagstafi. Never was a human being, 'less he was some loony sandpiper like yourself, or a Piute floater, or mebbe a dippy prospec-" tor. Come along!' Ranor began to realize that he might have some difficulty in persuading these men of the truth. "I assure you," he insisted, "that last evening this friend of mine, Mr. Darrow, and a young lady, a white girl, came to the telegraph line. Darrow climbed the pole and cut the wire to call you out here so that you could bring us in, just as you have done. I'm very greatly obliged to you, but now you must help me find the young lady. When I awoke this morning both were gone. I have been tracking them and have found their footprints up to a little point beyond here. If you will come with me you will see that the hoofs of a horse appear and the footprints stop. Now I want you to put me in this car and follow the marks of these hoofs." Again, as before, the two Unemen winked broadly at each other. One of them said: "Queer, ain't it, how a nut goes off? Sounds quiet and simple up to a certain point, then — blooey — ^jumps into the middle of next week." "The poor simp!" the second remarked, under his breath, and added aloud in an indulgent tone to Ranor: "That's all right, young fellow, come along with us peaceable now. You can tell the King all about it. Soon as we get back I'll send the fairy chariot for your princess. That makes better time than our Lizzie. She's coughing for oil and we may have to float in on one cylinder. Come along, peaceable. That's a good fellow!" With a quick, decisive nod to his companion the lineman seized Ranor by one arm while the second grasped the other. Presently Ranor was seated forcibly in the motor car between 220 FRUIT OF THE DESERT the two men and the machine was rattling along over the sage brush under the telegraph wire. Rauor controlled his indignation and thought to argue with his captors. "My name is Ranor Gaul," said he, quietly, realizing that he was helpless and that any struggle would only confirm the others' evident conclusion that he was a limatic. "My father is Aaron Gaul of Philadelphia. You must have heard of him, president of the Middle Atlantic Railroad, chairman of the Board of Directors of the Iron River Steel Company, president of the Calchester National Bank. I promise you that if you stop and do as I say my father will fittingly reward you." "That's right generous of the Baron, ain't it, Bert?" said the lineman at the wheel, as he threw the speed regulator into high and the car leaped forward at a forty-five-mile clip. "Sure, I know your dad," remarked the second lineman. "I bought him a drink last Sunday at the Pleasant Days. Be said his remittance was a bit late this month. Right sociable old codger." Ranor saw it was hopeless, so he gave up for the moment his attempt to restrain them. They rode on in silence for an hour through the vast, level, sage-brush plain over which the tires of the motor sped with crackling regularity. Finally they entered a twenty-mile stretch of rolling coimtry and then dipped suddenly down a declivity to the bed of a stream up which they proceeded for another ten miles. Then they forded the river, climbed the opposite bank, and presently emerged on a grassy cultivated highland where the car slid onto a faintly outlined dirt road. It was the first Ranor had seen since he had left the San Fernando Valley on the edge of the Mojave Desert in far-off California so long before. An hour later the motor stopped before the combined telegraph office and post-office in the main street of Utah City, while a curious throng of idle villagers quickly gathered about the naked, bronzed young man who surveyed them all with ill- concealed impatience. THE CAPTURED SANDPIPER 221 From the office emerged a burly individual, wearing smoked glasses, who, from his air of authority, Ranor took to be either the telegraph agent or the postmaster. One of the linemen called to him. "We mended the leak, capt'n, and grabbed the wire bug." In five minutes Ranor had persuaded the burly individual, who proved to have charge of the local office, to send tele- grams to Mr. Aaron Gaul, in Philadelphia, and to Mr. Clif- ford Syce in Los Angeles. The agent, possessing a certain amount of intelligence, had the initiative to add for himself a description of the weird apparition who had come in from the desert, as it were, on the wings of the morning. As quickly as telegrams could possibly carry his messages and receive the rephes, word came back from Philadelphia: Hold him pending arrival of Mr. Syce from Los Angeles. Meanwhile extend unlimited credit. The agent, in perplexity, showed the telegram to the presi- dent of the local bank and asked him what "unlimited credit" meant. "Just what it says," replied the banker. "Tell him to call on me. Our capitalization is only a hundred thousand dollars, and there is hardly a quarter of that in our vaults in currency to-day, but he can have it to be^n with." CHAPTER XXX ESTABUSHING A PHOTiX3TOHATE WHAT Bert, the lineman, described as a "flock of Lizzies" left town that afternoon piloted byRanor, to the spot in the sage brush where the break had occurred in the telegraph line. As they left, clouds appeared, and before they had passed half the distance a heavy storm was raging. By the time they reached the spot where Banor had been picked up earUer in the day they were drenched to the skin and night had fallen. They waited for the next day, when the sun reappeared, but every trace of Darrow and Izara had been washed away. All that day the half-dozen automobiles which Ranor had hired scoiu^d the country in every direction, looking for traces of the outlaw. The search was futile. In despair the second night Ranor retimied. Early the next morning the dapper Mr. Syce stepped from thi rear end of the Salt Lake Express and grasped Ranor's hands. After one eager and affectionate glance the attorney ex- claimed: "My boy, this is the happiest moment of my Ufe. It is merefy incidental, of course, that you have saved my reputation with your family, but I can't help telling'you that I'm a little stuck on my own judgment right now. Never, for one moment, have I believed that you were dead. Every- one but your mother and I had given you up. Even your father resigned all hoj)e when a year passed and nothing was heard of you. But that day when you left me, more dead than alive, I felt that there was something in you that was going to win your fight. It was not reasonable to think it, 222 ESTABLISHING A PROTECTORATE 225 but I have been playing long shots on men and animals all my life and I picked you then as a hundred-to-one bet! And you have come home with the money!" "Thank you, Mr. Syce. I want to ask you one question," said Ranor, "do I look crazy?" "If you get a hair cut and a shave and put on a decent suit of clothes you'll be the sanest looking man on two feet," was the attorney's satisfactory answer, as he looked at his watch and began consulting time tables which he took from his pocket. "You have just three hours and forty minutes to clean up," he added, "and then we can catch the local that will take us as far as Deseret. We'll spend the night there and connect with the Overland in the morning." "I sha'n't leave here, Mr. Syce, just yet," Ranor said, quietly, "and I want you to stay and help me." "But yoiu: father has instructed me. I had him on the long-distance 'phone before I started. He told me to bring you myself, on the first train East, if indeed it proved to be you, which, I am free to say, he seemed to doubt." Ranor shook his head. "I am just as keen as possible to see my father and my mother," he continued, gravely. "I can hardly tell you, Mr. Syce, how glad I will be to see them. You must know that. But I have a very important purpose to fulfil here first. If my father wants to see me before that is done, he will have to come here. Please tell him that." The attorney, being a man of action, wasted no words in argument but, taking Ranor's arm in his, started toward the telegraph office. "Let us see if we can get a long-distance connection," said he, "and you can tell him yourself." Four days later the private car "Bellaire" was cut off at Utah City. It carried Mr. Aaron Gaul of Philaddphia, who, at this jumping-o£F spot, welcomed the return of his son as of one who had come back from the dead. Ranor's mother and sister, on their way home from a trip to Europe, were four days behind. 224' FRUIT OF THE DESERT To Mr. Gaul, who had wasted no time in going West, it was as though long before he had read his son's name in the casualty lists as one "killed in action" only to discover now that it was a very fortimate error. He found Ranor, of course, overjoyed to see him, but intensely occupied in a curi- ous activity. He was directing, methodically and tirelessly, the work of a series of searching parties which were scouring the country for hundreds of miles in every direction in a vain but vigorous eflFort to locate the lost Izara. Ranor told the story of his sojourn with the Sunnites, though some of its most thrilling details he omitted for a later occasion. Especially did he refrain from any mention of the sunnite gems. But he insisted that he would not leave Utah until he had foimd the mysterious white girl who had saved his life and who still occupied every moment of his thoughts with an intensity that, to his own surprise, was only in- creased as he became again surrounded by the easy-going and comfortable habits of his former luxurious existence. Mr. Gaul, who did not openly question his son's story, however, quietly, on the side, to Mr. Syce, expressed a cer- tain doubt as to the existence of this curious settlement of Indians, He was rather inclined to be convinced that his son had been suffering from a phase of desert fever or am- nesia, or a prolonged simstroke, which had over developed his imaginative faculties, while also, luckily, beyond doubt making his body whole and well. While Mr. Gaul was discussing this possibility with Mr. Syce the government Indian agent arrived in response to an urgent telegraphic summons. This agent, whose supervision of Indian affairs comprised the territory where Ranor had stated the Sunnites lived, astonished Mr. Gaul by confirm- ing some of Ranor's statements. Yes, the agent said, he had long known vaguely of the existence of such a tribe, but its habitat was in an out- of-the-way and inaccessible part of southwestern Utah, and the Indians were so harmless that the government autbori- ESTABLISHING A PROTECTORATE 225 ties had long deemed it inadvisable to attempt either to molest them or to penetrate to their retreat, as ten years before a government agent who had tried to go there had been caught in a trap and while treated with civility, had been so deeply impressed with the Indians' fear of molestation that he had recommended that so long as they did not leave their tableland nothing should be done to disturb them. At this point, while Mr. Syce withdrew for a moment to get the mail, Ranor was called into the consultation. The Indian agent was fascinated with his account, declaring that it was the first authentic story of the Sunnites, and that it undoubtedly would add a most valuable chapter to the annals of American ethnology. Impressed with the financial and political importance of Mr. Gaul and thinking that he might be flattering the son, the agent expanded. "These are very worthy Indians," said he, "probably the finest tribe of aborigines now existing. I believe they can be made useful citizens, and if they were taken out and estabUshed on some near-by reservation, in perhaps twenty or twenty-five years would become progressive and self- supporting, and a great credit to themselves. I think they could be taught cattle raising or " "Stop!" cried Ranor, as his sedate father and the self- satisfied agent looked at him in astonishment and surprise. "How dare you, in your stupid smugness, backed by the blind power of a great government, have the astounding audacity to suggest that you can teach these sublime red men any- thing? "Cattle raising? You would degrade them to the making of carrion with which to glut the already degenerate bodies of this over-fed white population! "Progress? Why, they're a thousand years in advance of all of you. "CiviUzation? They have reached the heights of civili- zation of which only a few of the great seers of the human 226 FRUIT OF THE DESERT race have ever even dreamed. John on his Isle of Fatmos saw nothing more supremely beautiful than the divinely simple life of these red men whom you, in your ignoraiice, chortle about 'saving'! "On the contrary, if there be one spark of intelligence left in the American people I am going to appeal to it to leave inviolate and protect forever from every possible incursion this angehc tribe. And if, by the grace of God, this nation shall be so fortunate as to be humble enough in spirit to accept the silent example of the priaciples of life which have been established by the Sunnites, then, indeed, it might be possible that we shall be 'saved ' by them. "However, there is but one dim hope for our salvation. It is that we now firmly resolve to protect the Sunnites and keep them as they are. If not, if either by force or guile we drive or lure them away from the fastness in which they live, the poetic justice which shapes the ends of man through the centuries will then exact its toll of us and we, too, will be swept away to oblivion." Mr. Aaron Gaul looked at his son and then at the Indian agent who, utterly astonished, could find not a word to say. "My dear boy," said the Philadelphia banker, at length, in the most kindly manner, "I had no idea that your feelings on this subject were so deep. Are you quite sure that in your long wanderings you have not had a touch of the sun? " Ranor cast toward his father a glance almost of despair. He saw in the amiable old gentleman love and tenderness, but, mentally, only the reaction of an American captain of industry, a little puzzled to know what it was all about, but quite unconvinced, though too tactful immediately to express his real opinion on the subject. Realizing his son's intense feeling and vastly impressed with the physical figure of his boy, which he could only admire, he added, in a con- ciliatory tone: "Well, Ranor, it's pretty hard to make out what you are talking about, but I'll promise you this. If you want that ESTABLISfflNG A PROTECTORATE 227 tribe and all the land they occupy I'll buy it and them and give the whole kit and boodle to you. Then you can do with them as you please." "No, thank you. Father," said Ranor, with a laugh. "I guess it is hopeless to make you see what I see. I don't want any one, other than themselves, not even the Govern- ment of the United States, to own them and their land. But I'm going to take you up on that promise and I'm going to make you effect it in a very different way than you antici- pate. You are going to see that Congress immediately passes an act guaranteeing that those Indians shall have their land in perpetuity and shall not be molested in any possible way; and if any stupid, well-meaning galoot of a Christian missionary or any meddling, progress-pushing Indian agent tries to force cattle raising or anything else on them, I want you to see to it that he is fired on the spot." Aaron Gaul of Philadelphia rose and affectionately put an arm around his son in whom he felt he saw a reflection, though perhaps somewhat distorted, of his own decision and authority. "Very well, Ranor," he said, "it is done." At that moment Mr. Syce burst into the room where they were talking. His usual precise dignity was very much up- set, for he was excitedly waving in his hand a copy just re- ceived in the mail of a Denver newspaper. "Ranor," he cried, "your girl is found! Read this." CHAPTER XXXI Hemp vs. Silk RANGE., his father, and the Indian agent crowded about Mr. Syce who opened for them a copy of the Rocky Mountain Traveller. There, on the front page, flanked by an account of a murder and the story of a train wreck, was a column which read: OLD DESERT PROSPECTOR CLAIMS MUNSTER REWARD Turns Up With An Indian Girl Speaking Unknown Dialect Claim- ing She Is Priscilla Munster: Vainly Seeks $10,000. The newspaper story continued: Yesterday afternoon as the bank was about to dose, the paying teller of the First National received a visit from the queerest pair of customers he had ever seen. One was a bearded, bedraggled, tattered old plainsman who looked as if he might have been a desert hermit most of his life. By the hand he led a bewildered but strik- ingly beautiful Indian girl perhaps twenty years old. She wore a queer sort of soiled smock formed of such cloth as no one ever before had seen, apparently made of Indian hemp very crudely carded. No one could understand anything she said and even the old pros- pector seemed unable to commimicate with her except by signs. The prospector gave his name as Henry Dawson, and he declared that the Indian girl was none other than Priscilla Munster who was kidnapped sixteen years ago from her father's home in the outskirts of Pueblo, and for whose retium a reward of ten thousand dollars has long been offered. Mr. Dawson declares that he rescued the girl whom he was escorting from a wandering tribe of Fiutes on the edge 228 HEMP VS. SILK 229 of the Jolo Desert, in southwestern Utah. He was a bit rambling and hazy in his explanation of how he reached Denver from the Jolo coimtry but he seemed confident that the paying teller would hand out the ten thousand to him immediately upon the presentation of the girl. It was evidently his naive idea that she would be im- mediately cashed as if she were a check. Mr. Dawson was very much surprised and shocked when the vice-president of the bank, who was called in consultation, firmly suggested that he and the girl, whose rather tantalizing beauty seemed to be a fit subject for ex- tended comment, should be held in custody for a day or two, pending investigation. Upon being apprised of this intention of the bank officials Mr. Daw- son suddenly changed his mind and concluded he would not press his claims for the reward any further. He said that he was quite willing to leave the girl, but began pleading the urgency of his own engage- ments in certain remote parts, concerning which he was also rather hazy. Meanwhile, the teller of the First National had communicated to police headquarters and before long Detective-Sergeant Hennessey was on the job. After a short interview with Mr. Dawson, Sergeant Hennessey announced it as his conviction that the naive old prospec- tor was none other than a well-known Arizona bad man named Slim Darrow, alias Jim-Crow Johnny, alias Oregon Pete, etc., etc. Dar- row, it appears, has been known long and intimately in police and sheriff circles throughout the Southwest. He has done three stretches of time and is wanted now for an escape from Folsom Prison in California, as well as for a bank robbery in Petaluma County, in that state. The really strange feature of the case is the Indian girl. The matron at the detention ward at the city prison says that she is sure the girl is white, although she has lived so long in the open that the ordinary observer might think from the colour of her skin that she is an Indian. Her features are distinctly Caucasian, with high- arched eyebrows, a plainly Roman nose, very delicately formed lips and nostrils, and small ears. Her hair, also, is extremely soft, and not of the thick, wiry blackness so characteristic of the Piutes and the Pueblos. The case of Priscilla Munster will be recollected by our readers as that of the white girl who was discovered about a year- ago in the Siwash reservation. The Indian agent who found her claimed and 230 FRUIT OF THE DESERT secured the reward that had been offered by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Munster of Pueblo. Therefore, whether this new fair unknown is white or red and whoever she mav be, she is not Priscilla Munster. The personality of the Indian girl was striking and her beauty so commanding that even the matron in the detention ward felt that it was distinctly unjust to hold her, even over night, in the precincts of the prison. She was greatly pleased, therefore, when a very wealthy and charitable woman, yrho has requested that her name be not published, called and offered to care for the girl until her identity could be established or a satisfactory legal dis{)osition pro- vided for her. Consequently, the mystery in the case is consider- ably deepened. As Ranor finished reading this article he exclaimed: "It's Izara, all right. How the deuce did Slim get her there?" Turning to his father he did not ask, but commanded: "I want you to order a special engine to take the 'Bellaire' in- stantly to Denver." Mr. Gaul looked at the Indian agent with a nod as if to say he had never doubted any of his son's story, and then re- plied to Ranor, "Certainly, my boy. That is what I was thinking just before you spoke. Your mother and sister must be in Denver by this time. I was in Philadelphia when I got your message, and did not wait for them to catch up as they had not yet landed in New York. I have held them in Denver the past few days, where they are waiting for us, and will be more than happy to see you. Mr. Syce, attend to that engine. Meanwhile, Ranor and I will step over to the station and see if we can get Mrs. Gaul on the long- distance 'phone." The next afternoon the "Bellaire," guided by a swift engine and two extra baggage cars added for ballast, pulled into the station at Denver. Ranor saw his mother and his sister waiting on the platform, their eyes moist with happy tears. After long embracing he was led to a waiting limousine and rapidly carried to the hotel. Before he reached their destina- HEMP VS. SILK 231 tion Ranor protested that he wished to go first to police headquarters and when his mother wanted to know why, he told her. She smiled, knowingly, and m-ged him to come first with them. As Banor stepped inside the door of his mother's suite his eye was arrested by the silhouette of a familiar figure which he saw against the window of a farther room. He rushed within. There stood Izara, clad exactly as when he had last seen her, in the tattered old hemp mantle and the worn birch-bark sandals. She looked upon him casually, as though his entry in that setting, over furnished, over upholstered, and in his opinion poorly ventilated, were a most ordinary occasion. He took both her hands and drew her to a seat. While the two sat there, conversing in Sunnite, Ranor's mother and sister came in and calmly stood in the background looking on with amazed silence. "How could you leave me? " Ranor protested, in the archaic language which he alone of all white men knew. Izara looked at him with a peculiar, shy, ironic protest, as though the question were extremely impertinent. "So this is the hot geyser you promised me, and this is the steam bath!" Ranor laughed merrily as the closeness of the temperature of the room lent colour to Izara's question. "But how did you escape?" he insisted. She became stoically reserved, but after his repeated in- sistence she answered, quietly, "Ask your friend who breaks all the laws." "Well, I'll shake it out of Slim mighty quickly," Ranor protested. Izara, looking somewhat disdainfully upon his father and mother and sister who stood waiting across the room, asked him: "And do these other friends of yours break the laws, too?" Ranor turned to his parents, laughing merrily, and inter- preted for them Izara's questions. 232 FRUIT OF THE DESERT "How on earth did you find her. Mother? How did you know about her? This seems Kke an incredible coincidence." "Mr. Syce has been in daily telegraphic communication with us since the moment we arrived," replied Mrs. Gatd. "I was eager to go to meet you, but he assured me that Ahce and I had better wait here. So I have talked with him half an hour at a time every day, and he has repeated to me most of your story. Alice and I doubted, in the beginning, what you must forgive us for calling the wildness of part of the tale, but three days ago when we were in the bank the presi- dent, Father's friend, entertained us with an amusing story of an occurrence of that afternoon. The outlaw had appeared at the bank only an hour or two before with this child. Alice and I wondered if it could be possible that this was the girl whose discovery was still holding you away from your mother and your sister. "At any rate, we immediately asked the banker to take us to the police station. There we discovered that Izara might be held indefinitely and it seemed such a pity that such an attractive girl, against whom there evidently was no charge at all, except possibly that of vagrancy, should be condemned, for even an hour, to the atmosphere of a jail. So, with a discreet wire pulling on the part of the bank president, we brought her here to await your coming. Was it not the right thing to do?" "By all means," replied Ranor, "but can't you give her something to wear? Hasn't Ahce any clothes to spare, or can't you buy her some?" "My dear, darling boy," answered the mother, smilingly, with a gesture which eloquently indicated hopelessness, "she is an absolute enigma. Of course, we can't speak a word to her nor she to us, nor does she seem especially interested or grateful for anything we have done for her. She won't eat a thing but roast corn and nuts. She won't drink a thing but water. "AUce offered her the choice of her wardrobe, any dress HEMP VS. SILK 233 she had, her pick of lingerie, anything, everything! She looked at it with a very slender curiosity and turned away. The only thing that seemed to interest her in the least was the bathroom, which, as you see, has a special steaming attachment. When she discovered this she gave the first evidence we had seen of possessing human intelligence. She became animated, shouted with glee, spoke volubly in her queer language, and danced all over the bathroom, throwing her hands in the air and uttering some sort of a crazy prayer. Alice showed her how to manipulate the stops and left her and she has spent most of her time since then messing around with the water and the steam. She has parboiled herself, and washed out all those queer old rags she is wearing. You see they are clean, but she will have nothing else." Ranor turned to Izara. He asked her why she would not wear any of his sister's clothes. In a manner very deter- mined, but stiU a little shy, Izara explained. She could not tell of what they were made, she said. The stuff was so smooth and soft that it must be formed of the skins of animals or the feathers of birds, and these it was not lawful to wear or for man to convert in any manner to his own use. Ranor explained to his mother, sister, and father. They merely shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads and smiled indulgently, while Banor made no effort at the time to change Izara's ideas on this subject. Instead, he told her that he woidd leave her for a little while he went to settle accoimts with the desperado. CHAPTER XXXn The PuMj of the Primitivb THE turnkey of the jail led Ranor to the cell in which Darrow was locked. The desperado greeted his erst- while companion vociferously. "Well, kid," he cried, delightedly, "have ye seen th' gal?" "Yes," Ranor answered, shortly, "I have seen her." "Well, I brang 'er through safe fer ye, didn't I?" "She is safe. Slim, I am glad to say, but I want to know from you how and why you left me that night at the tele- graph pole?" The desperado looked around his small cage, slyly, as though he feared possible eavesdroppers. Then, with a soft chuckle to himself, he came closer to Ranor and said in a very low tone: "Well, th' important thing is she's safe, ain't it? I never touched her more'n wuz necessary. I wouldn't harm that gaJ no more'n s'if she wuz my mother. Ye know that. An' now I s 'pose ye '11 git me outa here in jig time, eh? I got it on th' grapevine a bit ago that ye an' yer dad entered town on a special. I guess a word from him to th' guv'nor'll fix it up all right, won't it?" Ranor ignored the irrelevant query. "Answer my ques- tion. Slim," he insisted. "How did you get away?" "Well, now, if ye insist, I'll make a clean breast of it. Ye know I'm a quick hand at sizin' men up. It don't take me long. One look is enough. Now I alius liked ye. Ye're a game kid, an' on th' up an' up, but ye're not practical. That's th' queer thing about ye. Ye got good idees, I don't ask fer no better pal to back me in a fight, or to march on 234 THE PULL OF THE PRIMITIVE 235 short rations across a desert, but when it comes down to a near turn an' a quick gitaway, an' a cute trick under th' law, I jus' natcherly couldn't expect ye, with that baby face an' a rich dad, to see things like an old, experienced hand such as SUm Darrow. "So ye see, when we lay down at that telegraph pole I says to myself that if we wuz picked up th' next mornin' Uke as not before there wuz a chance to claim that reward for th' gal ye might git a second thought about th' sheriff or non- sense of that sort. Of course, I didn't suspect it off'n ye an' wouldn't see no harm come to ye or th' gal either, but now, ye couldn't blame me, could ye, fer thinkin' of my own skin? Besides, there wuz that little pot o' money hung up in Denver fer th' lost Priscilla. Ye hadn't no need of it an' it wuz a mighty nice little stake fer Slim Darrow. Why, kid, if I could put my hands on that ten thousand I'd turn straight an' buy a chicken ranch an' settle down, an' stick to corn an' cabbage th' rest o' my natural." Ranor grew impatient with this long-winded evasion. "But how did you get away?" he demanded. "Did Izara go with you willingly? What argument did you make?" Slim winced a little as though he were somewhat ashamed of the episode, as he replied, sotto voce: "Now, I didn't do 'er no harm. I jus' slapped 'er on th' bean with an old stick I picked up right after ye went to sleep, an' then carried 'er off a piece. Then I took some of th' few drops that wuz left in that gourd she wuz carryin' an' brought 'er to. She's a game 'un. She didn't make no holler but I could see she wuz thirsty an' I let 'er unnerstand there wuz a spring a bit on. In that way I teased 'er along fer a mile or two. Come daylight my luck held good, fer there, lookin' up from an arroyo, wuz an old pal o' mine, Dutch Hoper, on a spindle- legged cayuse. I giv' him th' lay purty quick an' he giv' us a lift on fer a couple o' days imtil we struck th' railroad. I promised to split th' pot with him when I nabbed it in Denver, an' luckily he had a bit o' gold dust in his sock, so 236 FRUIT OF THE DESERT he bought our fares. He's hangin' around town somewhere now waitin' fer me." The amused interest in Ranor's face — whose sense of relief in knowing that Izara was safe was uppermost in his mind — caused the outlaw to overestimate his hold on his companion. After a short silence he asked, with a note of pleading, "Do ye think yer old man can git me out? " ^ Ranor pondered a brief moment and then he repUed, with finality, "Slim, I think that you and I are about quits. You stuck me up over there on the Mojave more than a year ago. It wasn't your fault that I didn't die, but I will cross off that mark against you because though, not to your credit, it did result in my being taken in by the Sunnites. Then you tried to make amends by helping me out of their prison. I paid for that by releasing you, and you saved my life from Bopu, but you took from me what is dearer than life itself and caused me a week of terrible anxiety and suffer- ing when you ran off with Izara. "Now, I don't want to say anything that will add to your discomfort, but I imagine you would rather be here with three square meals a day in the Denver jail than down there in the Sunnite cave, with their half portions of maize cakes." "Would I?" ejaculated the desperado, "you can bet yer sweet pizazza, this is Uke a whiff of heaven to a tortured sinner after a year in that hole!" "I thought so," Ranor concluded, "and now I think it is only square for me to let you settle your accounts with the sheriff of Petaluma, as you told me you intended to do when I first met you." The turnkey appeared to tell Ranor that his time with the prisoner was up. As he withdrew from the cell Darrow yearningly reached toward him. "Aw, kid," he pleaded, "don't leave me flat Hke this. I've got a hankerin' fer ye, I have. Maybe I'm nothin' but an old sage-brush stick-up an' I ain't askin' ye ter invite me to yer home, but I tell ye honest, when I saw that red varmint THE PULL OF THE PRIMITIVE 237 about to plug ye with that stone I giv' him his quietus, jus' as happy as if I mtiz drawin' a plug of tobacey out o' a Denver store. Of aU th' jobs I've done, kid, that sets quietest on me. Now don't turn me down an' forget me complete." "I'll not forget you, Slim," Ranor called into the cell as he turned away. "If you get a hold on yourself and serve your time, I'll see, when you come out, that there's a good job waiting for you. And if you make a first-class record where you're going, I may be able to get you out on parole a little before yoiu: time is up. Now good-bye and take care of yourself." Mrs. Gaul and Alice were disposed to be affectionate toward Izara, but their advances met with a curious rebuff which they were at a loss to understand. Accustomed to patroniz- ing poor relatives and to receiving the homage of the unfor- tunates whom they frequently assisted in their charitable undertakings, they could not quite understand the aloofness with which Izara accepted their attentions. Ranor tried to explain to them that perhaps it meant very little in the life of the High Priestess of the Sunnites to have one or two more pay her homage, even though these happened to be the exclusive Gauls of Philadelphia and Bryn Mawr. "But I should think she'd have a better sense of propor- tion," Alice objected, "she was bom white, and yet she is practically nothing but an ignorant savage. I wonder how long it will take her to realize her position? Why, she treats me almost as though I were beneath her." Ranor enjoyed this immensely. "And so you are, Alice," he countered, laughingly, "I don't say it's your fault that you were imlucky enough to be bom out of the reach of the sun and without the advantages that come from the un- divided allegiance of the wisest men in the world." Alice tried to accept this as a pleasantry, but Ranor could see that she was nevertheless nettled, while Mrs. Gaul said 238 FRUIT OF THE DESERT indulgently: "WeU, it's refreshing to know a true child of Nature. She is really a curiosity." Ranor had persuaded Izara to accept an outfit of linen clothing, assuring her that it was not fashioned from the skin of any animal nor from the feathers of any bird, but was woven from a fibre not unlike hemp, although, as Izara was forced to admit, much softer and more delightful to the touch. It was astonishing how well the new clothes became her, and the lissome grace with which her splendid figure was accommodated to the fashionable soft garments quite capti- vated both Mrs. Gaul and Alice. The Denver dressmaker who was employed to complete the fitting declared that she had several times been called in by rich Indian maidens from the territory adjoining Colorado to make fashionable clothes but that it was impossible to render them anything but dowdy and ridiculous. Izara, on the other hand, had the erect carriage and the iustinctive poise of the cultivated Caucasian, and when the Unes of her figure were once properly costumed the casual eye could not possibly be sure that this was her first acquaintance with civilized apparel. However, Izara absolutely refused to wear shoes made of leather. It was useless to attempt to persuade her. She knew very well that they were formed from the skins of animals. And even though Ranor tried to suggest that perhaps the animals bad been brought to accidental demise, she refused to compromise with her steadfast principles. Mrs. Gaul and Alice greatly enjoyed the first two or three days with Izara after she had made herself presentable so that they could take her into the hotel lobby and dioing room and about town with them, although she did appear a bit outree in straw sandals. For them it was like having a new toy and they devoted a great deal of time to teaching her English, word by word, and enjoying the naivet6 of her very restricted conversation. Meanwhile, Ranor and Mr. Syce were busily preparing to THE PULL OF THE PRIMITIVE 239 return to the land of the Sunnites, for the Indian agent said he was determined to go there shortly and continue oflScially, for the Government, Ranor's discovery. Ranor, alarmed at this, and conscience-stricken lest he should be the cause of precipitating on the lowly and harmless Sunnites an un- welcome conquest, even though it was bloodless, hurried his father to rally all his political influence to secure imme- diately an official assurance that the Indians never should be molested. Above all, he feared the discovery of the sunnite mine. At all costs, that must be preserved to the Sunnites. Mr. Syce, under the direction of Mr. Gaid, kept up a constant telegraphic and telephonic communication with Washington and finally was able to tell Ranor that the Department of the Interior had assured him that his desires to guarantee the integrity of the Sunnite tribe and their lands could be realized. That night after dinner, when Izara had withdrawn, Mrs. , Gaul said to Ranor : " This girl is quite impossible. I think the best thing we can do with her is to send her to a boarding school. She is so headstrong and unsociable that I've nearly lost patience with her. I'm sure that she is naturally a very good girl, but all of her formative years have been spent with those ferocious redskins, and her mind has been entirely warped. It will probably be years before she can secure even the foundation of a Christian education." "Well, I haven't time to let her go to a boarding school," Ranor commented, casually. " You haven't time? " his mother replied. "No," he continued, "I'm going to marry her " Mrs. Gaul seemed to be waiting for this and was quite prepared. She turned upon her son abruptly and with all of the matronly decision for which she was celebrated. "Now, Ranor," said she, "I was a httle fearful that your romantic notions might lead you into this. Of course, it is impossible. You know you have not really been yourself for several 240 FRUIT OF THE DESERT years, and now that we're so happy to have you well and strong again, you must not make us feel that you still have a little mental sickness, while your body appears so healthy." Ranor embraced his mother heartily, in the best of good spirits. "Well," he exclaimed, "you needn't take it tragi- cally just yet, because I'm up against something a little tougher than your disapproval." "What is that?" "Izara won't marry me. I've asked her more than once but I guess I'll never be able to explain to you the ins and outs of it all. To understand you would have to go through all I have gone through. In the first place, she doesn't think it is possible for her to marry. The Sunnites have a kind of marriage ceremony, but all her life she's been ac- customed to the idea that she is a priestess and belongs to the sun, and up to this time I have not been able to shake her in that notion. However, you need not think that I'm going to give up. Sooner or later Izara will be Mrs. Ranor Gaul, and I can notify you here and now, irrevocably, that you can make up your mind to that and prepare yourself for it." Mrs. Gaul received this announcement from her much- loved son with a composure which was rather largely on the surface. Her only comment was; "I'm glad that she has more sense than you have." She rose, but added before she went: "Think this matter over, Ranor. Think it over very carefully, and if, after a few days, you still persist in this rash idea, let us send her to a boarding school at least for a year or two. You can see her whenever you wish, but meanwhile do this much for your mother who surely has no desire to make you unhappy: postpone the wedding." CHAPTER XXXin The New Life ALICE GAUL, who was the heiress to several millions, could hardly be expected to spend a great deal of time ^ with a bronzed young savage who with diflBculty spoke a few monosyllables of English, who refused to wear shoes, or to imprison her hair in a hat. This lack of interest became noticeable to Ranor as soon as Mrs. Gaul informed her daughter that unless they were extremely discreet they would be obUged to face a lifetime with this outrie primitive as one of the family. Izara thought that she was being left more to herself than during her first days in Denver out of resjiect for her own wishes, and she told Ranor how extremely thoughtful his mother and sister were to molest her no longer. "Quite right," said Ranor, "Mother and Alice are a little afraid, I imagine." "Afraid?" Izara repeated, wonderingly. "Quite so. Your virtuous ways have imperilled their peace of mind. It is a little hard for them to sit down to a meal of meat or fowl or fish while you are alongside with a living accusation that they are little better than cannibals, while you exist so happily on the things that they regard, like poor old Slim, as 'mere trimftiin's.' And I imagine Alice is a little jealous of the beauty of your feet which you insist on showing in those transparent sandals on all occasions." This was said in the jocular vein which so well became Ranor, but Izara accepted it literally and with full serious- ness. "Then you think I can really convert them?" she ex- 241 242 FRUIT OF THE DESERT claimed, with transparent delight. "I never believed it would be possible for me to become, as you once suggested, a missionary." Ranor tried to conceal the doubt and bewilderment which he experienced at the contemplation of the idea of his mother and sister being "converted." The suggestion, how- ever, was too pregnant with possibihties for him to attempt to disabuse her naive self-confidence. Instead, he seized it as a favourable opportunity to impress on Izara her need of instruction and guidance. "If you intend to be a missionary to these poor heathen," he continued, earnestly, "it will be necessary for you to be able to speak their language perfectly." "That is true," Izara reluctantly admitted. "I am afraid they will never learn Nahneet." "Never! And you also will have to know more about their manners and customs before you can start in on the big work of reformation." "Don't I know them already?" queried Izara, ingenuously. "You have hardly scratched the siu^ace. Properly to equip yourself for this great work it will be necessary for you to come East and to attend a school where all these things can be taught to you, not only their language, but all else that they think and do." She shrank away from him, apparently consumed with an imspeakable revulsion. "Are you afraid?" he asked, gently. "No," she answered, "I am not afraid of what might happen to me, and it may be that I can do some little good among your people, but I am only thinking of what an awful sacrifice I must make!" She tiu-ned upon him abruptly, pleading: "Oh! don't you think that I can ever see the wise men again? And the Temple of the Sim? And Izara's palace? And the bath house by the river?" "Some day," he assured her, "we can go back, but not before you have fulfilled your great mission." THE NEW LIFE MS With this argument and reluctantly, Izara, the following day, accompanied the Gauls as they started to return to Philadelphia. On the observation platform of the "Bellaire," as it sped along over the Colorado plains that evening, Ranor and Izara sat alone, and watched the twilight fade and the colours change from lavender and mauve to cobalt blue, pierced by the diamond points from above. He quoted to her from "Ulysses," turning the words slowly into Sunnite so she could understand: "/ propose to sail into the sunset and the paths of aU the western stars until I die." Impulsively she clasped his hand with both of hers. " Yes ! Yes! But we are speeding toward the simrise! Oh! Take me back!" He placed an arm around her and she did not resist. "All in due time, dear Izara," he said, softly, as the night settled down. "First you come with me to my people and learn their ways. Perhaps then, at least for a visit, we can return to yours, but" — ^he sought her eyes and gazed steadily in them — "only as man and wife." Very slowly she drew away from him, as she said, quietly: "You know that I trust you and that I respect you, but there never can be more between us than there is now. Do not deceive yourself. I shall always be your friend, I hope, but you have a father and a mother. I am the child of the Nahneets and the daughter of the Sun, as well as His bride." "I imderstand," he assented, gently, as he regained her hand, which she did not refuse. "I will say nothing and do nothing to alter your belief. Let it remain. Time will tell. I have no doubt that eventually we will belong, even more than at present, to each other, not chiefly because I desire it, but because the divine harmony of all things, regu- lated by the great Sun Himself, must surely bring it to pass." As he spoke thus of the sun she instinctively drew closer, while he continued: 244 FRUIT OP THE DESEET "Let me tell you how it has been with me. I was bom rich, as you see. Never but once in all my life was I obliged to make a really important decision for myself. That de- cision I took one day as I lay in my invalid chair in an arbour behind a bungaloHv in California. I was dying, despite everything that could be done for me by love and care and skill, with money or thought. In that moment, when my life was ebbing, something within me deeper than reason urged me to act, urged me to defy everything that had been taught me and all those who loved me. On that decision my life hung. I made it without the slightest hesitation. Like a gambler who throws his aJl on the turn of the wheel, I threw my life, as it were, on the mercy of the sim. "See how I have been rewarded! Since then I have done nothing for myself. The one decision made, the first step taken, it seems that everything has been added imto me. I was robbed and dying alone in the desert, and Tuwah ap- peared from nowhere to save me. Again, I was about to perish, and your blessed hand turned aside the bolt from on High. Again, Bopu had me in his power. Nothing that I could have done would have spared my life. From with- out, someone — a poor, half-demented outlaw — appeared to save me. Then I lost you, more precious than life itself. Again, L alone, was helpless. Again, from without, appeared my father and all the vast power that he can command, and, without my raising my hand, you were restored to me. "Do you wonder that I believe, as I sit here looking at the stars in the heavens, that all the planets with their satellites, all the Sims, are fighting for me as they swing in their courses? Why should I, the pimy Ranor Gaul, the smallest of atoms, lift his finger or raise his voice? Have I not committed my- self unreservedly to the keeping of the Sim ? Has he not given me all I have yet had? "Why should I doubt that he will yet bless me with that which is the crown of all, and without which all the rest is as THE NEW LIFE US nothing — ^the gloiy and the great happiness of your love, my Izara?" Her eyes dwelt on his, entranced. His arm passed around her shoidders and with a gentle sigh she came still closer. Together they looked out across the rolling prairie as it slipped away under the swift wheels which bore them faster and faster toward the teeming East, while they, looking back, saw, eye to eye, into the primordial West as it rose mistily out of the endless plain. As they looked it seemed for the moment that the night had lifted. The mist was gone. The mountains reared protecting lines above a little tableland where nestled a settlement of gentle, ancient folk. The communal fires ^owed peacefully on the comers of the streets; the wise men nodded blissfully in their calm as of Nirvana. The maidens swayed rhythmically in the dance before the caressing eyes of the yoxmg men. The stream wound its gentle curve around the tribe as if holding it lovingly in the hollow of its arm. Peace, happiness, humility, content! These they were leaving behind as they sped on, mile by mile. Was it to something better they were going? THE END THE COttMTKY LIFE PRESS GARDEN CITY, N. Y. .n^M^M '}^"